UC-NRLF 
 
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THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND 
 MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID 
 
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 FRONTISPIKCE. GLANCE AT CHINA. 
 
.',W<iL. ' 
 
 WILEY & PUTNAM 
 
 161 BROADWAY. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAQE. 
 
 A GLANCE AT CHINA . . . . .5 
 
 BOOTHIA FELIX AND THE ESQUIMAUX . . . 14 
 
 THE ASHANTEE CHIEF . . . . .33 
 
 THE RAILWAY AND THE STEAMBOAT ... 40 
 
 THE EARTHQUAKE AT LISBON . . . .52 
 
 THE AMPHITHEATRE OF VERONA ... . 56 
 
 THE SEASONS . * * ; . . .63 
 
 THE FALLS OF NIAGARA ... . . 73 
 
 THE DIAMOND . t y . . .82 
 
 LONDON, PAST AND PRESENT .... 88 
 STAFFA, AND FINGAL'S CAVE .... 100 
 THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY . . . .103 
 
 THE LAND'S END, AND THE CORNISH WRECKERS . . 107 
 
 PEEPS THROUGH THE MICROSCOPE .. . . 116 
 
 THE AFRICAN KING 126 
 
 OH 
 
4 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGI 
 
 COMPARATIVE SIZE AND FORMATION OF ANIMALS . 130 
 
 THE MANDAN INDIANS . . . . .139 
 
 A WARROW VILLAGE GUIANA . . . 150 
 
 PERILS OF THE DEEP . . . . .152 
 
 THE RIVER THAMES . ." * V' ^ . 159 
 
 THE EAGLE . . . . .163 
 
 AUSTRALIA, AND THE KANGAROO . . 168 
 
GLIMPSES OF THE WONDERFUL. 
 
 A GLANCE AT CHINA. 
 
 
 
 THE Macedonian king, when he had reached the banks of 
 the Indus, wept like a spoiled child at the belief that he 
 should soon have no more worlds to conquer. He knew 
 not that far beyond the Ganges, whose sacred stream he 
 never visited, was a vast region, more populous, more 
 civilized, and more wealthy than any of those which his 
 armies, in their rapid march from the Hellespont, eastward, 
 to the swift Hydaspes, had overrun. Two hundred years 
 before the era of Alexander the Great flourished Coon-foo- 
 tse, or, as he is known to Europeans, Confucius, the sage 
 and lawgiver of China, and the contemporary of Herodotus, 
 the father of Grecian history. And for centuries before 
 the time of Confucius had the Chinese empire existed; 
 counting far back her rulers and her dynasties, till the 
 truth of history was lost in a mist of mytholgical ex- 
 
A GLANCE AT CHINA. 
 
 aggeration, which absurdly claims for the " Celestial Em- 
 pire" as the Chinese fondly term their country a date 
 some centuries previous to the time fixed by Moses for 
 the creation of man. This, however, the more enlightened 
 among themselves are content to consider fabulous. 
 
 The simple truth is sufficiently wonderful without re- 
 sorting to fable ; for strange indeed it is that a mighty 
 empire should have flourished, whose very name was for 
 centuries a mystery to the nations of the West, and whose 
 existence was sometimes treated as a chimera. 
 
 For more than twenty centuries China appears to have 
 attained nearly the same degree of civilization and ad- 
 vancement in arts, sciences, and government which now 
 so favorably distinguish it from other Asiatic nations ; 
 and there it appears to have been nearly stationary. 
 While the " outside barbarians" of the West have been 
 struggling, century after century, out of the darkness and 
 ignorance and brutality of their forefathers, the Chinese, 
 content with the wisdom, the discoveries, and the pre- 
 cepts that so justly distinguished the remote antiquity of 
 their empire, have hitherto shared but little in the mighty 
 changes, whether for good or evil, which have passed over 
 the face of the earth. 
 
 The doctrines of Christianity made but little progress 
 
A GLANCE AT CHINA. 7 
 
 amid the millions of the Celestial empire ; the Jesuits be- 
 ing for a long period the only possessors of the Christian 
 religion that obtained an entrance, and they were admitted, 
 not as teachers of another faith, but as astronomers, astro- 
 logers, and mathematicians. Mahomet appeared upon the 
 scene, and shook the thrones of half the known world. 
 The faith he preached spread from Arabia, and overflowed 
 all lands, from the Straits of Gibraltar in the West to 
 Central Asia in the East ; triumphing alike over the dead 
 and corrupted forms of superstition, that in the sixth cen- 
 tury usurped the name of Christianity over the tenets of 
 Zoroaster, which still lingered amid the fire- worshippers 
 of Persia over Bramah and the subject idols of Hindostan. 
 But while thrones and religions thus fell before the sword 
 of Islam, the doctrines of Confucius retained their sway 
 undisturbed throughout the extent of China. 
 
 The Tartars of Central Asia, they whose kindred at 
 different periods and under different names have ravaged 
 the most fertile and populous regions of Europe and Asia, 
 have twice invaded China, and seated a Tartar dynasty 
 upon the throne of Pekin ; and the present Emperor of 
 China is the sixth descendant of the Manchou Tartar chief 
 who conquered China in 1643. But though a Tartar race 
 may rule, China and the Chinese remain essentially un- 
 
8 A GLANCE AT CHINA. 
 
 changed ; the religion, the manners, the very name even of 
 the conquerors is absorbed and all but lost in those of the 
 conquered : the Tartar becomes Chinese ; and while the 
 un warlike nature and peaceable and industrious habits of 
 this remarkable people appear to render them an easy 
 prey to the brute force of a handful of invaders, their 
 immense numbers, the general diffusion of education 
 among them, the profound reverence and attachment to 
 the laws, language, and customs of their ancestors fos- 
 tered from earliest infancy these and other causes ensure 
 their essential independence as a nation, and enable them 
 to retain, by a species of passive resistance and conserva- 
 tive inertia, all their national characteristics unchanged 
 through the lapse of ages. 
 
 Lord Brougham, in his striking way, has summed up 
 the most remarkable features in the character and history 
 of the Chinese. " A territory of enormous extent, stretch- 
 ing 1400 miles from east to west, and as many from north 
 to south peopled by above three hundred millions of 
 persons, all living under one sovereign preserving their 
 customs for a period far beyond the beginning of authentic 
 history elsewhere civilized when Europe was sunk in 
 barbarism possessed, many centuries before ourselves, of 
 the arts which we deem the principal triumphs of civiliza- 
 
A GLANCE AT CHINA. 9 
 
 tion, and even yet not equalled by the industry and enter- 
 prise of the West in the prodigious extent of their public 
 works with a huge wall 1500 miles in length, built 2000 
 years ago, and a canal of 700, four centuries before any 
 canal had ever been known in Europe, the sight of such 
 a country and such a nation is mightily calculated to fix 
 the attention of the most careless observer, and to warm 
 the fancy of the most indifferent. But there are yet more 
 things unfolded in the same quarter to the eye of the politi- 
 cal philosopher. 
 
 " All this vast empire under a single head ; its countless 
 myriads of people yielding an obedience so regular and so 
 mechanical, that the government is exercised as if the 
 control were over animals or masses of inert matter ; the 
 military force at the ruler's disposal so insignificant, that 
 the mere physical pressure of the crowd must instantly 
 destroy it were the least resistance attempted : the people 
 all this while, not only not plunged in rude ignorance, but 
 more generally possessed of knowledge, to a certain ex- 
 tent, and more highly prizing it than any other nation in 
 the world : the institutions of the country established for 
 much above five-and-twenty centuries, and never changing 
 or varying (in principle at least) during that vast period 
 of time : the inhabitants, with all their refinement and 
 
10 A GLANCE AT CHINA. 
 
 the early progress in knowledge and in the arts, never 
 passing a certain low point, so that they exhibit the only 
 instance in the history of our species of improvement 
 being permanently arrested in its progress : the resources 
 of this civilized state incalculable, yet not able to prevent 
 two complete conquests by a horde of barbarians, and to 
 chastise the piracies of a neighboring island, (Japan,) or 
 to subdue a petty tribe, (Meaoutse,) existing, troublesome 
 and independent, in the centre of a monarchy, which 
 seems as if it could crush them by a single movement of 
 its body : the police of the state, all-powerful in certain 
 directions, and in others so weak as to habitually give way 
 for fear of being defeated : the policy of the state an un- 
 exampled mixture of wisdom and folly, profound views 
 and superficial errors : patronage of arts and sciences, 
 combined with prohibition of foreign improvements : en- 
 couragement of domestic industry, with exclusion of in- 
 ternal commerce : promotion of inland manufacture and 
 trade, without employing the precious metals as a medium 
 of exchange : suffering perpetually from the population 
 encroaching upon the means of subsistence, and yet sys- 
 tematically stimulating the increase of its numbers ; re- 
 moving every check which might mitigate the evil, and 
 closing every outlet for the redundancy." 
 
A GLANCE AT CHINA. 11 
 
 There seems good reason to believe, that the great jeal- 
 ousy of intercourse with foreigners, which the rulers of 
 China have for so many years exhibited in so remarkable 
 a manner, arose mainly from the fears of the Tartar 
 rulers, lest their people, by acquaintance with other na- 
 tions, should acquire inclination or power to throw off 
 their foreign yoke ; and that the vexatious and insulting 
 obstructions to commerce, so long persisted in, were 
 scarcely more obnoxious to us than to the wishes and 
 habits of the Chinese people, although their love of order 
 and reverence for the authority of their rulers checked 
 any exhibition of this feeling on their part. 
 
 If this be the case, we may indulge a not unreasonable 
 hope that the war, so recently waged by England against 
 China, contemptible, not to say disgraceful, as it was in 
 its origin, may, in its consequences, be beneficial to the 
 Chinese, as well as to other nations. 
 
 Sir Henry Pottinger, (who negotiated on the part of 
 England the treaty of Nanking which was concluded in 
 1843,) with wise and liberal policy, stipulated for no ex- 
 clusive privilege to England, but included other nations in 
 its provisions for free commercial intercourse. Sir Henry 
 speaks most highly of the ability and uprightness of some 
 of the Chinese Mandarins, who conferred with him upon 
 
12 A GLANCE AT CHINA. 
 
 the provisions of the treaty ; and the esteem appears to 
 have been mutual, and to have ripened into friendship. 
 
 The Chinese, astonished that an island of inconsidera- 
 ble size could exhibit, at such an immense distance from 
 home, power and resources sufficient to baffle all the 
 efforts of their own great empire, in the very centre of its 
 dominions, have lost much of that overweening self- 
 conceit which made them affect to treat all visitors as 
 tributaries and subjects, and therefore as objects of con- 
 tempt and insult. The English, as their acquaintance 
 with the language and customs of this singular people in- 
 creases, appear to find more and more to respect and to 
 admire, and less to ridicule ; and let us hope that, by the 
 mutual exercise of forbearance and confidence, the newly 
 cemented friendship between England and China may 
 continue undisturbed by oppression on one part, and by ill 
 faith on the other. 
 
 I have thus endeavored to afford a few general " Glimp- 
 ses of the Wonderful" in this great portion of the human 
 family ; for seeing that so many works, of easy access for 
 all readers, have recently appeared, containing descrip- 
 tions of China in every aspect, it seemed needless to 
 repeat the process here. Every reader, young and old, 
 is by this time familiar with the quaint, unwieldy forms 
 
A GLANCE AT CHINA. 13 
 
 of Chinese junks, with their high, overhanging sterns, 
 their bamboo sails, and ornaments of paint and gilding ; 
 the nine-storied pagodas, with their porcelain roofs, 
 peaked, and ornamented with bells and flags, are known 
 to us all from the days of childhood, when we admired the 
 blue pictures on our plates, beneath the meat and pudding ; 
 and there too, and in many a pictured page of greater 
 pretensions, we have become familiar with Chinese 
 bridges, fish-ponds, and pleasure-houses, and the never- 
 absent willow the doll-like lady, with her pinched and 
 stunted feet, and the fat Mandarin, with his long tail. 
 The Chinese Exhibition, too, has shown to thousands of 
 delighted visitors the manners and productions of the 
 empire in yet more vivid reality. And as to the Great 
 Northern Wall, one of the " wonders of the world," be they 
 limited to seven, or extended to a hundred, it is familiar 
 to every young student of geography ; and so we need not 
 enlarge upon it here, but will take our flight to other 
 scenes in search of other wonders. 
 
BOOTHIA FELIX AND THE ESQUIMAUX. 
 
 FOR the last three hundred years, attempts have been 
 made by navigators of different European nations to find 
 a northern passage to India and China, and the other rich 
 countries and islands of eastern Asia, and thus to avoid 
 the long voyages round the southern extremities of Africa 
 or South America. There is hardly a doubt that such 
 a passage exists, both in a western and in an eastern di- 
 rection ; the one along the northern shore of Asia, the 
 other through Baffin's Bay, and between the islands that 
 are clustered along the Arctic shore of North America. 
 But it is almost equally certain that, even should some 
 fortunate voyager be able, in some very mild season, to 
 force his way by either channel, the discovery will be of 
 little practical utility for merchant- vessels, until the cli- 
 mate of that part of the globe materially alters. It is only 
 during unusually mild years that the snow ever disappears 
 from the land, or the ice from the sea, even in the height 
 of summer ; and this is only for a very few weeks, or even 
 

 
 ESQUIMAUX. 
 

BOOTHIA FELIX AND THE ESQUIMAUX. 15 
 
 days, and then again all is buried in adamantine chains 
 for nine or ten weary months. 
 
 The last attempt to discover the long-sought northwest 
 passage was made in 1829, by Captain Ross. Aided by Sir 
 Felix Booth, a wealthy London merchant, he fitted out a 
 steam vessel, called the Victory, with every requisite for a 
 polar voyage. After some delays and disappointments, 
 chiefly from the defective state of the boiler and other parts 
 of the steam-engine, the captain reached Baffin's Bay, vis- 
 ited the Danish settlement of Helsteinberg, on the coast of 
 Greenland, and entered Lancaster's Sound. He sailed down 
 Prince Regent's Inlet, to the spot where Captain Parry's 
 ship, the Fury, had been wrecked four years before. Her 
 crew had returned to England in the Hecla, and as this 
 vessel could not contain all her stores, they were neces- 
 sarily abandoned, after having been piled on the beach in 
 regular order. Captain Ross had obtained permission 
 from government to make use of them, and he was not 
 disappointed in his calculation of finding that they had 
 sustained no material injury. When he landed on the 
 beach, with three of his officers, he found only one tent 
 left entire. This had been the mess-tent of the Fury's 
 officers, and it was evident that the bears and foxes had 
 paid it frequent visits. However, the preserved meats and 
 
16 BOOTHIA FELIX AND THE ESQUIMAUX. 
 
 vegetables were effectually protected from the sharp noses 
 and strong jaws of these hungry visitors by the strongly- 
 soldered tin canisters ; and though the two heaps had 
 been exposed to all weathers, they had not suffered in the 
 slightest degree : one hot summer's day in a milder 
 region would have done more mischief than all the storms 
 of the polar sky. Besides preserved meat and vegetables, 
 there were wine, spirits, bread, flour, sugar, cocoa, lime- 
 juice, and pickles. They then took on board the Victory 
 stores and provisions sufficient for their use during the 
 space of two years and a quarter, by which time they 
 hoped to have made their way through the long-desired 
 passage, and returned to England. Vain hopes, only to end 
 in long suffering and disappointment ! However, the 
 whole party were in excellent spirits at finding, in an 
 abandoned region of solitude, and ice, and rocks, a ready 
 market for all their wants collected in one spot, ready for 
 shipment and free of cost ; and having thus provided them- 
 selves, they proceeded on their voyage down Prince Re- 
 gent's Inlet, at the bottom of which they hoped to find a 
 passage to the westward. 
 
 The winter of 1829 was unusually mild in that part 
 of the world, and the sea being therefore comparatively 
 free from ice, the Victory reached the bottom of the 
 
BOOTHIA FELIX AND THE ESQUIMAUX. 17 
 
 inlet before the winter set in, without any great diffi- 
 culty. By the 8th of October, however, the ice had 
 gathered round them, and they were fast frozen in. 
 " There was not," writes the captain, " an atom of clear 
 water to be seen anywhere, and, excepting the occasional 
 dark points of a protruding rock, nothing but one dazzling 
 and monotonous, dull and wearisome extent of snow was 
 visible all round the horizon in the direction of the land. 
 It was indeed a dull prospect amid all its brilliancy ; this 
 land this land of ice and snow has ever been, and ever 
 will be, a dull, dreary, heart-sinking, monotonous waste, 
 under the influence of which every mind is paralyzed, 
 ceasing to care or think, as it ceases to feel what might*, 
 did it occur but once, or last but one day, stimulate us by 
 its novelty ; for it is but a view of uniformity, and silence, 
 and death." 
 
 However, though the captain wrote thus dismally, he 
 took every precaution to preserve the health and spirits of 
 his men, and with good success. The rigging of the ship 
 was taken down, a roof, with canvass sides hanging be- 
 low the ship's bulwarks, was built over the deck, and 
 under this the men might take exercise when the weather 
 was too severe and boisterous to permit their leaving the 
 ship with safety. Pipes were placed, both to warm and to 
 
 2 
 
18 BOOTHIA FELIX AND THE ESQUIMAUX 
 
 ventilate the interior of the ship. The men's hammocks 
 were taken down at six in the morning, and hung up at 
 ten every night. The lower deck, being the dwelling- 
 floor, was covered with hot sand every morning, and 
 scrubbed till eight o'clock, when they breakfasted. The 
 upper deck having been covered with snow two and a half 
 feet thick, was trodden down, till it became a solid mass 
 of ice, and was then sprinkled with sand. At six o'clock 
 every evening the sailors attended school, in which the 
 officers officiated as teachers ; and the captain states, that 
 the men seemed to feel that they all belonged to one 
 family, evincing mutual kindness, with a regularity and 
 ^tranquillity of behavior not very general on board of a 
 ship. 
 
 Several expeditions were now made from the ship, 
 during which it was ascertained that they were on a large 
 peninsula, in the Polar Sea, which bounds the northern 
 shore of America. To this peninsula Captain Ross gave 
 the name of Boothia Felix, in honor of his patron, Sir 
 Felix Booth ; but in no, other respect does the name Felix 
 appear appropriate, for, by the captain's account, this is 
 one of the most miserable and inhospitable regions that 
 man has ever visited, being at the very pentre of arctic 
 cold a land which is never, even during the height of its 
 
BOOTHIA FELIX AND THE ESQUIMAUX. 19 
 
 brief summer, free from ice and snow where such a thing 
 as a tree or a flower is never seen ; mosses and lichens, 
 and in sheltered situations a few grasses, being almost the 
 only signs of vegetation. It is true, the poor captain and 
 his men were frozen in, and compelled to pass, not one but 
 four dreary winters there, sorely against their hopes and 
 wishes, when they had expected to acquire great renown 
 by forcing their way through the Polar Sea, and emerging 
 through Behring's Straits into the Pacific Ocean. 
 
 Early in January, 1830, their solitude was interrupted 
 by the visits of some Esquimaux, the wandering inhabit- 
 ants of this frozen land ; for, strange as it may appear to 
 us, there are actually people who love this country as 
 their father-land who are born, and pass their lives in its 
 frozen solitudes, doubtless enjoying as much happiness as 
 if this region were the brightest, sunniest spot on earth. 
 The Esquimaux are a simple-hearted, harmless people, 
 with broad, good-humored, healthy faces. There were 
 thirty-one in this party, of whom the eldest, Illicta, was 
 sixty-five years old ; six others between forty and fifty ; 
 twenty between forty and twenty; the number being made 
 up by four boys. Two were lame, and, with the old man, 
 were drawn by the others in sledges. They were all 
 well dressed, chiefly in excellent deer-skins, the upper 
 
20 BOOTHIA FELIX AND THE ESQUIMAUX. 
 
 garments double, and encircling the body, reaching in front 
 from the chin to the middle of the thigh, and having a 
 cape behind to draw over the head. The sleeves covered 
 the fingers, and of the two skins that composed this gar- 
 ment, one had the hair next the body, and the other in the 
 reverse direction. They had on two pairs of boots, with 
 the hairy side turned inward, and above them deer-skin 
 trousers, reaching very low on the leg; besides which, 
 some of them had shoes outside their boots, and trousers 
 of seal instead of deer-skin. And very comfortable 
 clothing this must have been for such a frozen climate. 
 Under such a heap of clothing they appeared a much 
 larger people than they really were. All of them bore 
 spears, looking not much unlike a walking-stick, with a 
 ball of wood or ivory at one end, and a point of horn at 
 the other. On examining the shafts they were found to 
 be formed, not of one long stick, (for where no trees 
 grow no sticks can be cut,) but of small pieces of wood, 
 or of the bones of animals very neatly joined together. 
 But where can they obtain small pieces of wood any more 
 than long sticks ? During the summer, great quantities of 
 drift-wood float along the shores of the Polar seas, and 
 this is eagerly collected by the Esquimaux for fuel and 
 other uses. This wood probably grew, for the most part, 
 
BOOTHIA FELIX AND THE ESQUIMAUX. 21 
 
 on the banks of some of the American rivers, which flow 
 into the Polar seas some of it may even be brought down 
 the rivers of the northeast oi Asia. However, from what- 
 ever quarter it comes, it is borne to and fro by the winds 
 and currents, until, being caught in some of the numerous 
 bays that indent these coasts, it falls into the hands of the 
 Esquimaux. 
 
 Not having expected them at this moment, Captain 
 Ross had no presents for them; but they consented to 
 accompany him to the ship, and were delighted by the 
 gift of thirty-one pieces of hoop iron. In return they 
 offered their spears and knives, but were very well pleased 
 to find their offer was not accepted. " We could now 
 easily see," writes Captain Ross, " that their appearance 
 was very superior to our own ; being at least as well 
 clothed and far better fed, with plump cheeks, of as rosy 
 a color as they could be under so dark a skin. Like 
 other Esquimaux, their good-natured faces were a regular 
 oval ; the eyes dark and approaching each other, the nose 
 small, and the hair black." They seemed cleaner, too, than 
 some the captain had seen in former voyages. Their 
 dresses were made with peculiar neatness, and some were 
 ornamented with fringes, made of sinews or with strings 
 of small bones. They did not relish the preserved meat 
 
22 BOOTHIA FELIX AND THE ESQUIMAUX. 
 
 that was given them, but on being offered some oil, drank 
 it off with great delight. Blubber, fat, tallow, iu short, 
 grease of any kind, however disgusting to us, is eagerly 
 sought and devoured by the Esquimaux. And Captain 
 Ross remarks, very oddly, but not less truly, that it would 
 be very desirable if Europeans who visit the arctic re- 
 gions could acquire a taste for the same food ; since all 
 experience shows, that the large use of oil and fat meats 
 is the true secret of life and health in these frozen 
 countries, and that the natives cannot subsist without it, 
 becoming diseased and soon dying under a less oleaginous 
 diet. 
 
 Nor is this impossible, since patients in English hos- 
 pitals, who have been dosed with fish-oil for the cure of 
 rheumatism, soon learn to like it, and prefer that which 
 has the strongest flavor. Many who have perished in 
 the winters of those climates might doubtless have been 
 saved, if they had conformed to the usages and expe- 
 rience of the natives. How admirably has the Great 
 Father of men adapted the constitution of man to accom- 
 modate itself to the climate and productions of the coun- 
 try which he inhabits ! 
 
 The bears, seals, and whales, upon w r hich the Esqui- 
 maux and Greenlanders live almost entirely, have an 
 
BOOTHIA FELIX AND THE ESQUIMAUX. 23 
 
 enormous quantity of fat in their huge bodies. This 
 fat is found by physiologists to be highly essential to 
 produce, in the process of respiration, a certain amount of 
 animal heat, so as to keep up the temperature of the body 
 in those climates. On the contrary, in temperate and 
 warm regions, such food as the Esquimaux enjoy would, 
 besides being disgusting, be useless and hurtful ; while 
 these people consume enormous quantities of it, and 
 are enabled thus to support the bitterness of an arctic 
 winter, without appearing to suffer more from the ex- 
 treme cold than do the residents of more genial climes 
 during their winter. In other respects, too, it is curious 
 to observe how these poor people, simple and ignorant as 
 we may think them, manage to live in health, comfort, 
 and plenty, where Europeans, however hardy, and pro- 
 vided beforehand with a home, (their ship,) fitted up with 
 every comfort, with abundant stores of provision and ex- 
 pensive clothing, can hardly manage to exist for two or 
 three years become diseased and emaciated, and think it 
 a great achievement to return home alive. 
 
 The Esquimaux seems to make even the cold, that ren- 
 ders every thing not living as hard as iron, subservient to 
 his purpose. In two hours he can build a perfect shelter 
 from the biting blast, with square blocks of snow. His 
 
24 BOOTHIA FELIX AND THE ESQUIMAUX. 
 
 house is a dome of solid masonry, of which every part is 
 nicely fitted, and provided with a long winding gallery, 
 open in a direction opposite to that from which the coldest 
 winds blow. From the frozen bodies of fish he can form 
 a sledge, which, being bound together with the sinews of 
 bears and deer, glides securely over the frozen plain. 
 During the winter, sea and land are alike to him ; he har- 
 nesses his dogs and gallops away over either, and finds his 
 food beneath the ice that covers the deep. 
 
 Captain Ross and his men soon returned the visits of 
 the Esquimaux, whose village consisted of twelve snow- 
 huts, which had the appearance of inverted basins. Each 
 hut had the long appendage mentioned before ; and oppo- 
 site the entrance of the principal apartment, which was a 
 circular dome, was a flooring of snow, raised about two 
 feet and a half high, and covered with various skins : this 
 formed the sleeping-place of the family. At one end of 
 this platform sat the mistress of the house, opposite the 
 lamp, which being of moss and oil, gave sufficient flame to 
 supply both light and heat. Over the lamp was the cook- 
 ing-dish of stone, containing the flesh of deer and of seals, 
 with oil, and there seemed abundance of this provision. 
 All these snow-huts were lighted by a large oval piece of 
 clear ice, fixed about half-way up, on the eastern side of 
 
BOOTHIA FELIX AND THE ESQUIMAUX. 25 
 
 the roof. Captain Ross found that all these huts were 
 scarcely a day old. What cares the Esquimaux for wood 
 and bricks, and slate, and glass ? he has his ice and snow, 
 with which he forms a perfect shelter in less time than our 
 builders would require to mark out the ground. This party 
 of Esquimaux, and some others besides, frequently visited 
 the ship, and made themselves very useful to our country- 
 men, by guiding them on their exploring trips, and catch- 
 ing fish. In payment for these services they were well 
 pleased to receive files, needles, and chisels in short, iron 
 in any shape, of which they fully appreciated the use and 
 value. 
 
 One poor native, named Tulluiahu, had lost a leg, and 
 was obliged to be drawn on sledges whenever his company 
 moved from place to place. The ship's carpenter set to 
 work to make him a wooden leg, with which he stumped 
 about with great delight at being once more set upright, 
 and able to walk. In token of gratitude for this service 
 his wife, Tiriksiu, made Captain Ross a complete female 
 dress, which was a first-rate specimen of Esquimaux tailor- 
 ing ; the skins being most carefully fitted, so that the col- 
 ors of the fur should match ; while there was a fringe 
 below, and a border of white round the hood and arm- 
 holes. In return, the captain gave her a silk handkerchief 
 
26 BOOTHIA FELIX AND THE ESQUIMAUX. 
 
 which attracted great admiration. Tiriksiu also gave 
 them some useful geographical information : she, in com- 
 mon with many of the natives, perfectly understood the 
 nature and object of a chart. In fact, Ikmalik, one of the 
 most intelligent among them, had drawn, for the captain's 
 use, a chart of the neighboring coasts ; and Tiriksiu, on 
 being shown it, marked, in addition, several islands, the 
 places where food could be obtained, and where they had 
 better sleep on their journey : and in this, as in other in- 
 stances, it was found that their information was remarka- 
 bly accurate. 
 
 The sun at length began to appear above the horizon ; 
 the winter gradually passed away at least so it would 
 be considered in those regions ; and the Esquimaux de- 
 parted to their summer haunts. 
 
 The ice gradually melted around the ship, and the 
 voyagers made every preparation for sailing away. They 
 watched anxiously, day after day, for an opportunity of 
 getting into open sea ; but not until September did the 
 Victory once more float in free water. They got under 
 sail ; they advanced about three miles through the loose 
 ice ; which soon united again, blocked up the channel by 
 which they had hoped to escape, closed round the Vic- 
 tory, and once more were they bound in for another winter, 
 
BOOTHIA FELIX AND THE ESQUIMAUX. 27 
 
 to be passed in the same manner as the last, but with 
 diminished hopes of success. 
 
 In August, 1831, the Victory floated once more, was 
 towed out of harbor by the boats, and this year they sailed 
 four miles, when they were again blocked up by the ice, 
 and a third dreary winter was before them. 
 
 As the summer of 1832 drew near, they determined to 
 abandon the ship, ' and endeavor to reach, in the open 
 boats, some part of the sea where they might fall in with 
 some of the whaling-ships ; for by this time the stores 
 they had taken from Fury Beach were becoming exhaust- 
 ed, and it seemed needful to reduce the daily portion of 
 food. 
 
 They prepared their sledges, boats, and provisions ; 
 they nailed the English flag to the mast of the poor 
 Victory, and abandoned her to her fate. Captain Ross 
 writes " It was the first vessel I had ever been obliged 
 to abandon, after having served in thirty-six, during a 
 period of forty-two years. It was like parting with an old 
 friend, and I did not pass the point where she ceased to be 
 visible, without stopping to take a sketch of this melan- 
 choly desert, rendered more melancholy by the solitary 
 abandoned home of our past years, fixed in immoveable 
 ice, till time should perform on her his usual work." 
 
28 BOOTHIA FELIX AND THE ESQUIMAUX. 
 
 After many difficulties and hardships they again reached 
 Fury Beach on the 1st of July, and found the remainder 
 of the provisions in the same condition as they had left 
 them three years before. Here the poor travellers were 
 once more put on a full allowance of food. They built a 
 house, and rested for a month, in order to recruit after 
 their fatigues in dragging the boats and sledges over the 
 rough ice, or, worse still, the soft, melting snow. By the 
 1st of August some clear, navigable water appeared ; the 
 boats were launched, and they beat about for the next two 
 months, in hopes of gaining the open sea, where they 
 might probably find some whaling-ships. It was, how- 
 ever, in vain ; the ice again closed round them, and leaving 
 their boats drawn up in a secure position on the beach, 
 they had once more to return to their house on Fury 
 Beach, and make preparations to pass there their fourth 
 winter, which they spent as before, but without any visits 
 from the Esquimaux, who do not appear to have frequent- 
 ed this spot. 
 
 In July, 1833, they once more set forward on their 
 way. They found the boats where they had left them 
 the preceding autumn, and during August they sailed 
 along the lane of water, which now appeared through 
 the ice, and by the 17th the sea was once more free. 
 
BOOTHIA FELIX AND THE ESQUIMAUX. 29 
 
 On the 26th they were aroused by Wood, the look-out 
 man, who thought he saw " a sail in the offing ;" and 
 the telescope soon showed that it really was a ship, though 
 there were still some despairers, who maintained that it 
 was only an iceberg, which frequently has the appearance, 
 at a distance, of a vessel under sail. No time was to be 
 lost ; they burned wet powder to attract attention from the 
 still distant vessel ; launched the boats from the shore, and 
 set off, with sail and oar, in pursuit of her, and hoped 
 soon to have been alongside. Just then a breeze sprung 
 up, the ship bore up before it and sailed away, and left 
 the poor boats' crews unnoticed, far behind. About ten 
 o'clock they saw another vessel to the northward, which 
 appeared to be lying-to for the boats. This, however, was 
 not the case, as she too soon bore up under all sail, and it 
 was too evident that she was fast leaving them. This 
 was a most anxious moment for our poor discoverers, who 
 found themselves so near two ships, either of which would 
 have put an end to all their fears and toils, and yet that 
 they might possibly reach neither. Providentially, the 
 wind ceased, and the boats once more gained on the ship, 
 whose crew soon discovered them, and a boat was lowered 
 and rowed directly towards the three in which were 
 Captain Ross and his men. She was soon within hail, 
 
30 BOOTHIA FELIX AND THE ESQUIMAUX. 
 
 and the mate in command of her asked if they had lost 
 their ship. This being answered in the affirmative, the 
 captain requested to know the name of his vessel, and 
 was answered, "The Isabella, of Hull, formerly com- 
 manded by Captain Ross." " On this I stated," says the 
 captain, " that I was the identical man, and my people 
 the crew of the Victory. That the mate was as much 
 astonished at this information as he appeared to be, I 
 do not doubt ; but with the usual blunderheadedness 
 of men on such occasions, he assured me that I had been 
 dead two years." The captain soon convinced him that 
 he was mistaken, and a hearty congratulation, in true 
 seaman's style, followed of course, and he returned to 
 his ship to tell the news. As they slowly followed him, 
 he jumped on board, and in a minute the rigging of the 
 Isabella was manned, and Captain Ross and his men were 
 saluted with three cheers, and a hearty seaman's welcome. 
 The captain adds " Though we had not been supported 
 by our names and characters, we should not the less 
 have received from charity the attentions we received, 
 for never was seen a more miserable set of wretches : no 
 beggar that wanders in Ireland could have outdone us. 
 Unshaven since I know not when, dirty, dressed in the 
 rags of wild beasts, and starved to the very bones, our 
 
BOOTHIA FELIX AND THE ESQUIMAUX. 31 
 
 gaunt and grim looks, when contrasted with those of the 
 well-dressed and well-fed men around us, made us all feel, 
 I believe for the first time, what we really were, as well 
 as what we seemed to others. But a ludicrous scene soon 
 took place of all other feelings. In such a crowd and in 
 such confusion all serious thought was impossible, while 
 the new buoyancy of our spirits made us abundantly 
 willing to be amused by the scene which now opened. 
 Every man was hungry, and was to be fed ; all were 
 ragged, and were to be clothed ; there was not one to 
 whom washing was not indispensable, nor one whom his 
 beard did not deprive of all English resemblance. All, 
 every thing, too, was to be done at once it was washing, 
 dressing, shaving, eating, all intermingled it was all the 
 materials of each jumbled together, while in the midst of 
 all these there were interminable questions to be asked 
 and answered on all sides the adventures of the Victory, 
 our own escapes, the politics of England, and the news 
 which was now four years old. But all subsided into 
 peace at last. The sick were accommodated, the seamen 
 disposed of, and all was done for us which care and kind- 
 ness could perform. Night at length brought quiet and 
 serious thoughts; and I trust there was not one man 
 among us who did not then express where it was due 
 
32 BOOTHIA FELIX AND THE ESQUIMAUX. 
 
 his gratitude for that interposition which had raised us all 
 from despair, which none could now forget, and had 
 brought us from the brink of a not distant grave to life, 
 and friends, and civilization. Long accustomed, however, 
 to a cold bed, on the hard snow or the bare rock, few 
 could sleep amid the comfort of our new accommodations. 
 I was myself compelled to leave the bed which had been 
 so kindly assigned me, and to take my abode in a chair for 
 the night ; nor did it fare much better with the rest. It 
 was for time to reconcile us to this sudden and violent 
 change to break through what had become habit, and to 
 inure us once more to the usages of our former days." 
 
 In October, 1833, the Isabella reached England in safe- 
 ty, and Captain Ross and his companions, after all their 
 dangers and hardships, were warmly welcomed home by 
 their countrymen, who had long given them up for lost. 
 

 
\-HANTEE CHIEF, 
 
THE ASHANTEE CHIEF. 
 
 To compare the manners and customs of different na- 
 tions, the countries which they inhabit, their climates and 
 productions, is always interesting ; and we have here as 
 great a contrast as could well be imagined, to the fur-clad 
 dwellers among the snow-plains and icebergs of Boothia 
 Felix, in the fiery Ashantee, from the burning coast of 
 Africa. 
 
 The land of Ashantee forms the northern shore of the 
 Gulf of Guinea, into which its numerous rivers "roll 
 down the golden sand." The deep shade of huge forests 
 overhangs their banks, beneath which lurks many a 
 monster of the deep : the huge hippopotamus, the cruel 
 and crafty alligator, and, deadlier still than any living foe, 
 the fatal African fever. 
 
 There, as the night, chilly with heavy dews, gives way 
 to morning, a stifling and sulphureous mist rises from the 
 river's slime, and from the immense accumulation of the 
 quickly-decaying vegetation ; it creeps along the valleys 
 
 and the courses of the streams, until drawn upward by 
 
 3 
 
34 THE ASHANTEE CHIEF. 
 
 the increasing heat ; and then the fierce sun of the tropics 
 beats upon the fevered head of the fated traveller. Day 
 fades at once into darkness, without the gradual twilight 
 of our temperate zone, and, with night, again returns the 
 cold and aguish dew. Oh, it is indeed a horrible climate 
 for Europeans, and well has the coast of Central Africa 
 merited the name of " The White Man's Grave !" And 
 we are apt to wonder how it is possible that man can 
 inhabit such a land, and that he does not abandon it to 
 the wild beasts which prowl and roar around his villages 
 at night, and lie hid in the depths of gloomy woods by 
 day. Not so, however, does the Ashantee chief think of 
 his country ; for He whose command, in the early days of 
 man's creation, was " to replenish the earth and subdue 
 it," has implanted in the human breast an instinctive at- 
 tachment to the country of our birth ; and having spread 
 abroad the sons of men over all quarters of the globe, has 
 given them a capacity for happiness under all climes, 
 which perpetuates and ensures the fulfilment of His origi- 
 nal command. 
 
 " But where to find that happiest spot below? 
 Who can direct when all pretend to know ? 
 The shuddering tenant of the frigid zone 
 Boldly proclaims the happiest spot his own ; 
 
THE ASHANTEE CHIEF. 35 
 
 Extols the treasures of his stormy seas, 
 And his long nights of revelry and ease. 
 The naked negro, panting at the line, 
 Boasts of his golden sands and palmy wine ; 
 Basks in the glare, or stems the tepid wave, 
 And thanks his gods for all the good they gave. 
 Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam, 
 His first, best country ever is at home." 
 
 But we must not leave the Ashantee chief without a 
 little more information about him and his father-land. 
 The interior is not nearly so unhealthy as the coasts, 
 although even there immense forests cover the face of the 
 country, which becomes mountainous as we proceed in- 
 land. The trees are of stupendous growth, and of endless 
 variety : the gigantic boabab the mangrove and the 
 palm, mingled with a wild entanglement of thorny under- 
 wood, skirt the margins of the rivers : the elegant tulip- 
 tree, aloes, and citrons, of various kinds, and whole forests 
 of trees, elsewhere unknown, diversify the interior. The 
 sugar-cane grows wild, fruits without end abound, and 
 " flowers worthy of paradise," of a splendor and magnifi- 
 cence unknown in our conservatories, and surpassed by 
 the productions of no country in the world, are scattered in 
 wild profusion. 
 
36 THE ASHANTEE CHIEF. 
 
 Thus stimulated alternately by the glowing sun and 
 the deluges of the rainy season, (the only winter of the 
 tropical regions,) the rank and teeming soil of Ashantee 
 gives birth, in rich abundance, to the noblest forms and 
 brightest colors of vegetable life. 
 
 Nor are its animals less various or numerous. Among 
 them are the elephant, the rhinoceros, and the giraffe, 
 monkeys of various sizes and sorts, the porcupine, the 
 sloth, and the civet-cat, the lordly lion, the beautiful but 
 cruel tiger, leopards, wolves, and jackals. 
 
 Reptiles are prodigiously numerous : serpents of every 
 size, from the common boa to one not a yard long, but 
 exceedingly venomous, infest not only the woods and long 
 grass, but the dwellings of the natives, and the forts of 
 European settlers. Scorpions and centipedes, toads and 
 frogs of an enormous size, and lizards in great variety 
 abound. , 
 
 Birds " of every wing," too numerous to mention, (and 
 some indeed as yet unnamed by naturalists,) few of which 
 are of tuneful voice, but the greater proportion of ex- 
 quisitely brilliant plumage, flit across the dim twilight of 
 the woods, dive into the waters, or wing their bolder flight 
 beneath the glowing skies of Ashantee. 
 
 Amidst scenes like these, of wild and rank luxuriance 
 
THE ASHANTEE CHIEF. 37 
 
 with nature, animate and inanimate, exhibited in a 
 mingled aspect of savage gloom and dazzling splendor 
 with beauty and loathsomeness, and magnificence and 
 death side by side man seems to partake of the character 
 of the clime. 
 
 With passions fierce and unrestrained, the Ashantees 
 are yet enterprising, intelligent, cleanly, and industrious, 
 far beyond most of the negro race ; among whom they are 
 pre-eminent for their advancement in the useful arts. 
 Their plantations are laid out with order and neatness ; 
 the native weavers manufacture clothing, as fine in text- 
 ure and as brilliant in color as many of the products of an 
 English factory. The houses, generally thatched, and of 
 one story, are neatly built, and the walls are ornamented 
 with rude hieroglyphic sculptures. Their markets are 
 well provided and regulated, and their dress, especially 
 that of the higher orders, is tastefully arranged and orna- 
 mented " with pomp barbaric, gems and gold," of native 
 produce, and by native artists. 
 
 On the other hand, the Ashantee delights in the blood 
 of his fellow-man, which is poured forth like water, not 
 only in the heat of battle, but at every occasion of rejoicing 
 or of mourning. The death of a free Ashantee is, in al- 
 most all cases, attended by a sacrifice of human life, " to 
 
38 THE ASHANTEE CHIEF. 
 
 wet the grave," as they term it ; and the slaughter is great 
 in proportion to the rank of the deceased. On all public 
 occasions, but especially at their two great annual festivals, 
 the most brutal drunkenness stimulates all the bad pas- 
 sions of man, till the whole population seems wrought up 
 to the very pitch of madness and cruelty. The greater 
 proportion of the population are slaves, whose numbers, 
 as they are thinned by oppression at home, and by sale 
 to the yet more guilty European man-stealer, are recruited 
 by fresh arrivals of prisoners taken in their constant wars 
 with neighboring tribes. The government is a tyranny, 
 cemented by blood and supported by confiscation ; their 
 religion, a degrading and bloody superstition. 
 
 And yet, while we thus describe, in terms of abhorrence, 
 his character and habits, let us remember and the re- 
 flection may rightly mitigate the severity of our judgment 
 of the poor Ashantee that but a few centuries ago and 
 such a picture as this would have been almost exactly 
 applicable to our pagan forefathers, whether of British or 
 of Saxon race. Such as the Ashantee is now, such were 
 our ancestors twelve hundred years ago ignorant, crafty, 
 cruel, and revengeful. 
 
 The human sacrifices in the Druid's wicker idol the 
 wild revelry and fiendish cruelty of the sea-kings the 
 
THE ASHANTEE CHIEF. 39 
 
 feasts of Victory, where blood was mingled with the 
 draughts of intoxication, and the skull of the slain was the 
 goblet the imaged halls of Valhalla, where the Saxon or 
 Danish warrior hoped to revel for ever with Odin and his 
 peers, in a continuation of the mingled debauchery and 
 bloodshed which had marked his earthly career : what is 
 there worse than these in the practices and superstition of 
 the modern Ashantee ? And why, contrasting the English- 
 man of the present day with his barbarous ancestors, 
 should we despair of the ultimate advancement of the now 
 benighted African to the light of civilization, to the purity 
 of Christianity ? And though this, like many other of the 
 dark places of the earth, be " full of the habitations of 
 cruelty," why should we doubt that the light of the glorious 
 Gospel of God will, in his own good time, shine in their 
 hearts aiyl dispel the darkness ? 
 
THE RAILWAY AND THE STEAM-BOAT. 
 
 AMONG our " Glimpses of the Wonderful" the Railway 
 and the Railway-engine may, with great propriety, have 
 a prominent place. For is it not, indeed, wonderful that 
 a machine, formed by human skill of the rough metals 
 dug from the earth, and fed with fire and water, should be 
 endowed with swiftness far beyond that of the fleetest 
 courser that ever scoured the plain, with strength mightier 
 than that of the largest elephant, and yet with a facility 
 of management so exquisite that a touch of the finger can 
 accelerate or retard its speed, can reverse the direction of 
 its course, and give warning afar off of its winged 
 approach? Under the guidance of a skilful engineer, 
 the locomotive gathers up all its powers for the heavier 
 load, or for the ascending plane, and with increased and 
 yet increasing speed rushes onward with its enormous 
 freight to the appointed goal. 
 
 Most, if not all. of my readers have, no doubt, visited a 
 railway-station, and none who have witnessed can fail to 
 
THE RAILWAY AND THE STEAMBOAT. 41 
 
 be amused at the busy scene presented when a train is 
 about to start. Here are the clerks taking money and dis- 
 persing tickets to first or second-class passengers going to 
 various stations on the line ; numerous porters wheel along 
 the heaps of passengers' luggage ; the superintendent is 
 busy everywhere giving his directions ; the guard is 
 handing the passengers to their seats, and as the moment 
 of starting approaches examines his timepiece, hung at 
 his side in a leathern wallet ; the engineer and his as- 
 sistants, grim with coke-dust, are feeding with fuel and 
 water their mighty steed, from whose huge form issue 
 strange noises the bubble-bubble of the heating water, 
 the deafening hiss and scream of the hot vapor that 
 struggles to burst its prison, and scatter death and de- 
 struction around, if not allowed an occasional outburst ; 
 while ever and anon a gigantic snort, and a few quick, 
 impatient strokes of the piston, give startling warning. 
 The first bell rings ; the breathless loiterer who rushes 
 into the station at the very last moment, and sorely tries 
 the patience of the attendants with most unseasonable 
 heaps of luggage, is pushed into a seat, feverish to the 
 last with anxiety for the safety of his goods and chattels ; 
 the door is slammed after him, the guard mounts to his 
 seat, the engineer makes some magical movement of his 
 
42 THE RAILWAY AND THE STEAMBOAT. 
 
 hand, and the long train, with engine, carriages, passen- 
 gers, and luggage, glides smoothly on, out of the station- 
 house, past confused crowds of more trucks, carriages, and 
 engines ; past long and lofty piles of warehouses and en- 
 gine-rooms, which appear, and glimmer, and vanish, before 
 the dazzled eyes of the travellers ; and the mighty mass, 
 gathering speed as it goes, is soon bounding along over 
 the open country. 
 
 Let us examine a little into the means by which this is 
 accomplished ; and, without attempting a scientific de- 
 scription of the several parts of a locomotive engine, en- 
 deavor to understand the general principles on which they 
 are commonly constructed. 
 
 The sketch before us does not, nor could it, in so con- 
 fined a space, exhibit every part of the beautiful ma- 
 chinery ; but sufficient is shown to enable us, if not to 
 see how every thing is done, to obtain a tolerable idea 
 how it may be done. 
 
 I conclude that my readers are aware that water, when 
 heated to the boiling-point, (which, at about the level of 
 the sea, is at two hundred and twelve degrees of Fahren- 
 heit's thermometer,) evaporates in steam. At this heal:, 
 steam, under the ordinary pressure, requires about 1700 
 times the space that was occupied by the water which pro- 
 
SECTION AND VIEW OF LOCOMOTIVE ENGINE. 
 
THE RAILWAY AND THE STEAMBOAT. 43 
 
 duced it ; and this very steam, at a still greater heat, will 
 fill a space greater in proportion. Being compressed into 
 a smaller compass steam has an expansive force, greater 
 or less in proportion to its heat ; and in fact this force 
 may be so tremendously increased by the continued in- 
 crease of heat, that it has no ascertainable limit, as we 
 can construct no vessel so strong that it would not be 
 burst asunder by the steam confined within it and heated 
 to a certain point. 
 
 To avoid the awful destruction attendant on the explo- 
 sion of large boilers, the boilers of locomotives consist 
 of a number of small metal tubes, (2,) which are kept 
 constantly supplied with water from a cistern in the 
 tender attached. If one of these tubes burst, the ex- 
 plosion is comparatively trifling, and the danger and loss 
 of power but slight. The fire (1) in the hinder part of 
 the engine is supplied with coke, through a door opening 
 towards the platform on which the engineer stands. On 
 the lower part of the opposite side of the furnace (the 
 left-hand side in the cut) is a grating for the admission of 
 air to the fire ; and as this grating is towards the front, 
 the air, as the engine rushes forward, is met and forced 
 through its bars with great velocity, so as vastly to in- 
 crease the fierceness of the fire. The air, heated in pass- 
 
44 THE RAILWAY AND THE STEAMBOAT. 
 
 ing through the fire, and mixing with the vapor of burn- 
 ing coke, is highly inflammable ; and thus the whole appa- 
 ratus of tubes (2) which forms the boiler, is completely 
 enveloped in the fiercest flame, and steam is formed in the 
 tubes with amazing rapidity and of great expansive force. 
 The air and vapor of coke (which causes little if any 
 smoke) having thus performed their office, rush up the 
 chimney of the engine, and thus still further increase the 
 draught of the fire. (3) 
 
 The steam thus generated in the tubes, following the 
 course of the arrow downward, is admitted by valves into 
 the piston-box, (5) but alternately before and behind the 
 piston. In the cut the piston is at the half-stroke. We 
 will suppose that the engineer, by turning the handle at 
 8, in the direction proper for his object, admits the steam 
 before the piston ; (that is, at 5 ;) the piston is thus forced 
 backward towards the end of its box. By its arrival 
 there the valve, admitting steam into the fore part of the 
 piston, is closed, and another valve, admitting it to the 
 hinder part, is opened, and the piston is forced back again, 
 when the process is repeated, and the piston is thus moved 
 rapidly backward and forward by the admission and ex- 
 clusion of steam alternately before and behind it. The 
 piston-rod is attached by a hinge to what is called a pin- 
 
THE RAILWAY AND THE STEAMBOAT. 45 
 
 ion, which acts in the same manner as the arm of a man 
 in turning the handle of a grindstone. As the man's arm, 
 by being alternately thrown forward and drawn back, 
 turns round the grindstone, so the pinion turns round the 
 large wheel in the middle of the cut, and this, revolving 
 on the smooth iron railway, sets in motion the whole. 
 
 Now, it takes a great many words merely to describe, 
 thus simply and unscientifically, how the steam, by forcing 
 the piston backward and forward, thus sets the engine 
 in motion ; and no one who has not seen a fast locomotive 
 engine at work would imagine, from my description, the 
 ease and wonderful rapidity with which it acts. On the 
 Great Western Railway the engine frequently draws a 
 long and heavy train at the rate of sixty miles in an hour ; 
 and when unencumbered the same engine could, no doubt, 
 be made to travel nearly twice as fast. However, we 
 will suppose an engine to travel thirty miles only in an 
 hour, or a mile in two minutes, and that its wheel is eigh- 
 teen feet round, or about six feet in diameter. Now let 
 us calculate how many strokes in a minute the piston 
 must make to propel the engine at this rate. The wheel, 
 being six yards round, must turn two hundred and ninety- 
 three times and one-third (one-sixth of 1760) in the course 
 of a mile ; two strokes of the piston are necessary to turn 
 
46 THE RAILWAY AND THE STEAMBOAT. 
 
 the wheel, therefore the piston must give four hundred 
 and eighty-six strokes for every mile the engine travels. 
 At our supposed speed of thirty miles an hour, that is of 
 course four hundred and eighty-six strokes in two minutes ; 
 two hundred and forty-three in a minute ; more than four 
 in a second. Now, if we consider that the piston must be 
 perfectly air-tight, and yet that it must glide up and down 
 in its tube with such astonishing rapidity, and consider 
 further that each little valve which admits or shuts off the 
 steam must open and shut at every stroke of the piston 
 with the nicest accuracy, we shall see that the machine 
 must be most beautifully contrived in all its parts, most 
 accurately adjusted, and most carefully tended. There 
 must be no rust to corrode, no grit to cause friction ; every 
 screw, and bolt, and nut, must be secure ; every valve 
 must both fit closely and move easily : in short, every part 
 must fulfil its office with the most exquisite ease and ex- 
 actness. 
 
 It would be impossible here to explain all the wonder- 
 ful contrivances by which the locomotive engine is made 
 to perform all its functions. To bring it to its present 
 state of efficiency for speed and power, some of the 
 ablest men of our day have labored through many an 
 anxious hour with many a hazardous experiment, ad- 
 
THE RAILWAY AND THE STEAMBOAT. 47 
 
 vancing step by step from one improvement to another 
 here gaining more power, there an addition to speed at 
 one time effecting a saving in fuel, at another obtaining 
 an increase of safety, until now, in careful hands, a loco- 
 motive engine, with all its tremendous powers of destruc- 
 tion, is more under control than the gentlest steed that ever 
 lady rode. 
 
 It is curious, that so long before steam was brought into 
 general use as a locomotive power on land, it should have 
 been extensively employed on water. Against wind and 
 tide, through storm and calm, the gallant vessel ploughs 
 her way, urged onward by the fire that burns within her. 
 Steam-vessels have hitherto been generally propelled by 
 having on each side a large and broad w r heel, across the 
 circumference of which a series of vanes or paddles is 
 fitted, in the direction best adapted for forcing the vessel 
 through the water by a succession of powerful strokes. 
 These paddle-wheels are made to revolve by being con- 
 nected with the machinery of the engine, erected in the 
 centre of the vessel. The motive-power, and the prin- 
 ciple of itsapplication, are the same as in the engine of the 
 railway locomotive ; but the different circumstances under 
 which they have to act, occasion many variations in the 
 construction of engines for the two purposes. On the rail- 
 
 
48 THE RAILWAY AND THE STEAMBOAT. 
 
 road, speed along a smooth, level way, is the great practl 
 cal object to be obtained ; on the water, power to force the 
 vessel onward through all opposition from adverse winds, 
 and waves, and currents, is the great essential ; and the 
 machinery in each instance must be adapted for the end 
 in view. The short, rapid stroke of the railway-engine 
 would be powerless against a head-wind or an opposing 
 tide ; the powerful machinery of the steam-packet would 
 probably not propel a train on the railway at a speed 
 greater than that of the old four-horse mail-coaches. 
 
 Most steam- vessels of any considerable burden have two 
 engines, as shown in the section before us. It will be 
 seen that while the piston of one engine is up, that of the 
 other is down ; and thus, by alternate action, a greater 
 uniformity of stroke is given to the paddles, and that 
 jumping, jarring motion, so unpleasant on many vessels, is 
 diminished or avoided. A little consideration will show, 
 that the propelling power of the paddle-wheel is limited 
 to that portion of its circumference which has a horizontal 
 motion through the water, and that those paddles which 
 are entering the water and move in a downward direction, 
 as well as those that are just emerging and are pulled up 
 (so to speak) out of the water, must have a retarding 
 effect, to counteract which many ingenious plans for 
 
THE RAILWAY AND THE STEAMBOAT. 49 
 
 changing and regulating the direction of the floats as they 
 enter and leave the water have been proposed, but to little 
 practical purpose. 
 
 This retarding effect takes place even in smooth water, 
 and when the vessel is on an even keel ; but when a 
 vessel, either from the roughness of the sea, or from the 
 direction of its course being broadside to the wind, " heels 
 over," as the sailors call it, the paddle-wheel on one side 
 is buried deep in the water, while that on the higher, or 
 weather side, is vainly turning round in the air ; under 
 such circumstances neither wheel aids the progress of the 
 vessel materially, if at all. 
 
 These circumstances have induced engineers to seek for 
 a mode of applying the propelling force in a way not 
 liable to the disadvantages connected with paddle-wheels 
 fixed on each side of the vessel. In this, as in thousands 
 of other cases, the wisest of men have been glad to con- 
 sult the works of an all-wise Artificer, and from these 
 have obtained a hint of their most valuable discoveries. 
 Who has not admired the graceful motions of gold and 
 silver fish in a glass bowl : the gentle waving of the deli- 
 cate fins which Balance their bodies, from which the 
 dancing sunshine gleams and flashes and where they 
 float in evident ease and enjoyment ? But watch closely 
 
 4 
 
50 THE RAILWAY AND THE STEAMBOAT. 
 
 when one of those delicate little creatures darts across its 
 transparent globe, there is a quick, waving motion of the 
 broad tail, which gives the quick forward impulse as it 
 strikes the water ; and we shall find that the finny tribe, 
 from the tiny sprat to the huge leviathan, owe to this simple 
 means their power of rapid locomotion. Improving 
 upon this hint from nature, and considering also the 
 mode in which a single oar at the stern of a boat is made, 
 by a peculiar movement of the wrists, to propel it in 
 any direction, engineers have recently substituted for the 
 cumbrous and unsightly paddle-wheels at the vessel's 
 sides, a machine, fixed under water beneath the ship's 
 stern, and projecting beyond the rudder ; and which, being 
 turned by the steam-engine, propels the vessel through the 
 water, upon the same principle as the waving, screw-like 
 movement of a fish's tail. To this contrivance has been 
 given the name of the screw-propeller, and it has re- 
 cently been tried on a magnificent scale in the Great 
 Britain steamer, a gigantic iron ship, recently built at 
 Bristol, and intended for the regular and rapid communi- 
 cation established between this country and the United 
 States of America, 
 
 It is probable that experience may lead to still further 
 improvements in the application of this principle ; but 
 
THE RAILWAY AND THE STEAMBOAT. 51 
 
 already it has been most successful, the Great Britain 
 having performed her experimental trips to admiration, 
 and safely accomplished the voyage from Liverpool to 
 New York and back again. It must be evident, that if 
 the power obtained be sufficient, its application in this 
 way must be much more uniform and regular than by 
 the old system of paddle-wheels, as the screw-propeller 
 acts directly upon the centre of the vessel, and being 
 always under water, escapes the jars and violent shocks 
 to which the broad and exposed surface of the paddles is 
 subject by the striking of heavy seas against them. 
 
THE EARTHQUAKE AT LISBON. 
 
 AMONG all the catastrophes of which we read in history, 
 few appear so horrible as those which have been occa- 
 sioned by earthquakes. Thousands, who but a few 
 minutes before were full of busy life, have been swallowed 
 up as if they had never existed, or crushed to death by 
 fragments of falling buildings. 
 
 On the 1st of November, 1755, Lisbon was visited by 
 the most tremendous earthquake that has been known in 
 modern times. It happened to be a festival day. The 
 churches were lighted up, and particularly crowded ; 
 when, suddenly, a sound was heard like thunder, in the 
 very heart of the earth, and before the terrified inhabitants 
 could conjecture what was going to happen, a violent 
 shock threw down the greater part of their city, burying 
 more than 60,000 of them in the ruins : and for all this 
 the space of six minutes was sufficient ! It is impossible, 
 in so small a picture as this, to give a just idea of the hor- 
 rors of such a scene. 
 
THE EARTHQUAKE AT LISBON. 53 
 
 By this time the sea was violently agitated, and, after 
 sweeping back so as to leave the bar almost dry, it came 
 swelling and rushing with tremendous force towards the 
 devoted city, and rising more than fifty feet above its 
 usual level. Close to the water was a large marble quay, 
 upon which great numbers of the survivors had crowded 
 for safety, when (as if there was to be no refuge for those 
 against whom this awful doom had gone forth) the quay 
 went down ; and all that agony of hopes and fears, and 
 of horror unspeakable, vanished in a moment, and not 
 a trace of the quay, or of those who had flown to it for 
 shelter, was ever seen afterwards. 
 
 Those who had hurried into boats on the Tagus met 
 with no happier fate ; they sunk in the whirlpool occa- 
 sioned by the earthquake. 
 
 Lisbon has never recovered from the effects of this dis- 
 aster ; the few handsome streets which have been rebuilt 
 only seem to show, in more melancholy contrast, the heaps 
 of rubbish and ruins which were left ninety years ago ; 
 and the imposing appearance of palaces, churches, and 
 convents, which rise above the quays on approaching 
 the city from the river, creates a delusion which quickly 
 fades away when the badly-paved and dirty streets offend 
 the eye of the traveller. To complete his disgust, he 
 
54 THE EARTHQUAKE AT LISBON. 
 
 is almost sickened with pestilential effluvia, and annoyed 
 by swarms of dogs of every breed, with which the streets 
 of Lisbon are as much infested as those of Corinth or Con- 
 stantinople. 
 
 Notwithstanding the efforts which some influential peo- 
 ple have made to restore their city, so as to justify its an- 
 cient name of " Felicitas Julia," the greater part of it must 
 still retain its reputation for want of decency and cleanli- 
 ness : the imperfect lighting of the streets, the want of 
 sewerage, and the extreme indolence of the Portuguese, all 
 combine to give it this most undesirable celebrity. 
 
 Their government is bad, and there is a total want of 
 education among the lower orders. Mr. Semple describes 
 them as " a meager race, generally clothed in rags, and 
 filthy beyond endurance." 
 
 The aristocratic Portuguese are more grave, reserved, 
 and proud than their neighbors the Spaniards, against 
 whom, as a nation, they entertain a profound antipathy ; 
 but, notwithstanding all that has been said, many redeem- 
 ing features are to be found among the more enlightened 
 and refined circles in Lisbon. 
 
 Lord Byron's description appears admirably just : 
 
 " Whoso entereth this town 
 That, sheening far, celestial seems to be, 
 
THE EARTHQUAKE AT LISBON. 55 
 
 Disconsolate will wander up and down 
 'Mid many things unsightly to strange 'ee ; 
 For hut and palace show like filthily. 
 The dingy denizens are rear'd in dirt ; 
 Ne personage of high or mean degree 
 Doth care for cleanness of surtout or shirt, 
 Tho' shent with Egypt's plague, unkempt, unwash'd ; unhurt." 
 
THE AMPHITHEATRE OF VERONA. 
 
 MODERN Italy abounds in relics of antiquity memorials, 
 more or less entire, of a time when she was mistress of the 
 world. Now, oppressed by foreign intruders, and degraded 
 by native superstition, her children seek for consolation by 
 turning to the glories of their ancestors, and thirst for the 
 time when their beautiful country may again take her 
 proper station amidst the nations of Europe. The Roman, 
 as he treads the ruins of the Forum, listens in fancy to the 
 eloquence of Cicero ; he paces the gigantic round of the 
 Coliseum, and its now ruined and deserted walls appear, 
 to his fervid imagination, crowded with the myriads eager 
 to witness the contests of wild beasts, or the dying strug- 
 gles of the gladiator. 
 
 The lively Neapolitan descends to the buried remains 
 of Herculaneum and Pompeii, where are brought visibly 
 before him the domestic manners of his ancestors : he sees 
 the preparations for the meal that was never tasted ; he 
 visits the dungeon of the prisoner whose doom was pro- 
 nounced by no mortal judge ; and his thoughtless levity is 
 
THE AMPHITHEATRE OF VERONA. 57 
 
 for a while sobered by the thought that the fires of Vesu- 
 vius are yet unquenched, and that his own bright city 
 may one day share the fate of those before him, and like 
 them, after centuries of burial, be restored to the wonder 
 and curiosity of some later age. 
 
 The glory of Verona is its amphitheatre, which is one 
 of the most striking relics of the grandeur of the ancient 
 Romans. The time of its erection cannot be accurately 
 ascertained, as there is no inscription remaining on its 
 walls to guide the decision of the antiquary ; nor has it 
 been referred to by any classical writer whose works have 
 descended to us. Except the Coliseum at Rome, it is the 
 largest existing edifice of the kind, being nearly 1500 feet, 
 or more than a quarter of a mile in circumference. The 
 arena, (the level space seen in the cut,) within the benches, 
 is 249 feet across its longer, and 146 feet across its shorter 
 diameter ; for, like other buildings of its class, it is not 
 circular, but elliptic, or oval. From the outer edge of the 
 arena to the outside walls, is about 2GO feet, and it is cal- 
 culated that the seats which occupy this space would ac- 
 commodate 22,000 spectators. 
 
 The outer wall contained four stories of arches, and 
 there were seventy-two arches in each story ; of these, 
 one fragment, containing three stories, of four arches 
 
58 THE AMPHITHEATRE OF VERONA. 
 
 each, and rising to the height of 100 feet, is all that 
 remains to the top of the fourth story would, no doubt, 
 have exceeded 120 feet. The modern Veronese have, at 
 different periods, repaired the interior of the amphitheatre, 
 and the seats are in tolerable preservation. When the 
 French, under Napoleon, had possession of Verona, they 
 erected in the arena a wooden theatre, for the amusement 
 of the soldiers and citizens ; and this characteristic monu- 
 ment of French taste still remains. It will be seen that 
 this amphitheatre is open to the sky. This was the case 
 in ancient Greece and Italy, with all the buildings intend- 
 ed for public concourse, and the beautiful climate of those 
 countries allowed such a practice without material incon- 
 venience. The games and spectacles of ancient Greece 
 and Rome were generally more or less of a religious 
 character, and were accompanied with sacrifices to their 
 gods. Among these two nations, in the brighter periods 
 of their history, there was a considerable diffusion of in- 
 telligence ; and yet, (the art of printing being unknown to 
 them,) books were a luxury forbidden to all but the few 
 the rich, the noble, and the wise. Hence, with a greater 
 zest, the Greeks and Romans of antiquity, with minds 
 earnest, active, and excitable, crowded in throngs, to 
 which modern times have few parallels, to all places of 
 
THE AMPHITHEATRE OF VERONA. 59 
 
 public resort. The public games were frequented by 
 every class and every age : the philosopher went to 
 lecture and to argue ; the demagogue to declaim ; the 
 athlete to exhibit his own prowess ; the equestrian that 
 of his steeds ; the magistrate to preside and to appor- 
 tion the prizes ; and all the world to see, to hear, or to 
 exhibit. 
 
 To accommodate crowds so immense, buildings must be 
 proportionate ; and hence, among other causes, were the 
 skill, the taste, the power, and the riches of ancient 
 Greece and Rome concentrated to erect and to adorn 
 edifices, many of which, like the amphitheatre of Verona, 
 still exist to delight and to astonish succeeding ages. 
 
 At the Roman exhibitions was often squandered, in 
 a few days, the annual revenue of a province, wrung by 
 some victorious general from the groans and tears of the 
 conquered, and expended to win the favor of the popu- 
 lace, and the power which depended on their suffrage. 
 The drama races, both on foot, on horseback, and in 
 chariots the lights of wild and savage beasts from dis- 
 tant countries, were among the shows that drew the 
 immense crowds together ; but of all the exhibitions of 
 the arena, that which most delighted the ancient Italians 
 was the combat of gladiators. These unhappy men were 
 
60 THE AMPHITHEATRE OF VERONA. 
 
 mostly prisoners of war, and were selected for their 
 strength and courage from all countries overrun by the 
 Roman armies from Thrace, from the banks of the 
 Danube and the Rhine, from the forests of Germany and 
 Gaul, from the foot of the Pyrenees, and from the burning 
 soil of Africa. Before the combat, they walked round the 
 arena, frequently to the number of five hundred at a time, 
 to allow the spectators to judge of their comparative 
 strength, stature, and agility ; and the perfumed exquisite 
 and the delicate matron of ancient Italy, equally with the 
 rough plebeian and the veteran inured to blood in many 
 a battle, discussed the merits of each exhibitor his 
 chance of victory, and betted on the result with all the 
 gusto of a modern jockey. Each wretched victim was 
 bound by solemn oaths, and by the threat of fearful tor- 
 ments if he violated them, to strive for victory to the ut- 
 most either to slay, or to be slain. 
 
 A gladiator worsted in the deadly fight, might, before 
 the death-blow descended, appeal for pity to the spec- 
 tators ; but often, alas, the appeal was vain ! If his skill 
 and prowess had not satisfied his judges, their thumbs, 
 bent backward, signified that he must die ; and his 
 brother gladiator durst not, for his own life, spare his fall- 
 en foe that foe, perhaps, his countryman and his friend. 
 
THE AMPHITHEATRE OF VERONA. 61 
 
 " I see before me the gladiator lie : 
 He leans upon his hand ; his manly brow 
 Consents to death, but conquers agony, 
 And his droop'd head sinks gradually low : 
 And through his sides the last drops ebbing slow 
 From the red gash fall heavy, one by one, 
 Like the first of a thunder-shower ; and now 
 The arena swims around him he is gone, 
 Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hail'd the wretch who won 
 
 <( He heard it, but he heeded not ; his eyes 
 Were with his heart, and that was far away. 
 He reck'd not of the life he lost, nor prize ; 
 But where his rude hut by the Danube lay, 
 There were his young barbarians all at play ; 
 There was the Dacian mother he their sire 
 Butcher'd, to make a Roman holiday ! 
 All this rush'd with his blood. Shall he expire ? 
 And unavenged ? Arise, ye Goths, and glut your ire . 
 
 To the honor of the ancient Greeks, they steadily re- 
 fused, from motives of humanity, to imitate their Roman 
 masters by introducing this barbarous pastime. 
 
 Gladiatorial exhibitions were abolished by Constantine 
 the Great, nearly six hundred years after their first insti- 
 tution. They were, however, revived under the Emperor 
 Constantius and his two successors, but Honorius at- 
 
62 THE AMPHITHEATRE OF VERONA. 
 
 tempted, by edict, to put an end to these cruel barbarities. 
 In spite of this, however, efforts were made in Italy to 
 restore them to their ancient splendor, when, upon one 
 occasion, a noble monk, named Telemachus, entered the 
 arena to separate the combatants. The spectators, en- 
 raged at the interruption of their favorite pastime, over- 
 whelmed the intrepid monk with a shower of stones. 
 Hardly was the murder committed, when horror and 
 remorse seized the perpetrators ; the feeling of shame and 
 repentance spread, and the martyrdom of Telemachus 
 sealed the condemnation of gladiatorial exhibitions, and 
 ensured the submission of the people to the imperial 
 edict, which forever abolished the human sacrifices of the 
 amphitheatre. 
 
THE SEASONS. 
 
 IN our Glimpses of the Wonderful last year, there was 
 a chapter on Astronomy, which contained a brief account 
 of the motions of the heavenly bodies, the comparative 
 sizes of the planets in our solar system, and an allusion to 
 the cause of the changes in the seasons.* 
 
 Now, lest this last subject should not be fully understood, 
 we had better pursue it a little further, and shall be as- 
 sisted in our inquiries by the accompanying diagram, in- 
 tended to show the earth's position with respect to the sun 
 at different portions of the year. 
 
 Why, then, should the sun give more heat to any par- 
 ticular portion of the earth say to our island of Britain 
 at one time of the year than it does at another ? What 
 makes it so cold here in December and January, and so 
 warm in July and August ? It might, perhaps, be sup- 
 posed that the earth is nearer to the sun in summer, and 
 further off in winter ; but, on the contrary, astronomers 
 
 * Page 142. 
 
64 THE SEASONS. 
 
 have proved that we are actually nearly three millions of 
 miles further off the sun at our hottest portion of the year 
 than we are at our coldest. 
 
 Our former volume briefly alluded to the reason in these 
 words : " Some of the planets do not move round the sun 
 in a perfectly even plane, but a sloping one," &c., &c. 
 " This causes the difference of the seasons, without which 
 there would be neither summer nor winter, but the year 
 would be all alike." 
 
 Now, look at the diagram ? There is the sun in the 
 centre, while round him, 
 
 " On her smooth axle spinning, sleeps the earth." 
 
 Now this axle, of course, is not a real pole stuck through 
 the earth like a knitting-pin through a ball of worsted, but 
 is merely the term used to describe the part of a revolving 
 body round which it turns itself. Now, we might spin an 
 ivory ball on a smooth, level table in such a manner that 
 it would not leave the spot on which it was first placed, 
 but would keep turning there for a longer or a shorter 
 time, in proportion to the impulse first given. In this case 
 the ball would have only one motion that of revolving on 
 its axis. 
 
 Again, we might roll the ball from one part of the table 
 
THE SEASONS. 65 
 
 to another, in which case the ball would have two motions 
 one, as before, on its axis, and another from one part of 
 the table to another. It is in this latter way that the plan- 
 ets roll round the sun ; but the position of the axis with 
 respect to the orbit, or course round the sun, varies in dif- 
 ferent planets. 
 
 Our earth, which has its axis slightly slanted from the 
 perpendicular, turns round once in every twenty-four 
 hours, during which each part of its surface is by turns 
 brought towards the sun's light, and then gradually rolled 
 away from it into the shadow of night. Besides thus turn- 
 ing round on its axis, it rolls round the sun in a little more 
 than three hundred and sixty-five days that is, while it 
 is going once round the sun, it turns three hundred and 
 sixty-five times round itself, or, as it was before explained, 
 round its axis. 
 
 Well, then, we see the axis of the earth (represented by 
 a straight line running from N. to S.) in four positions with 
 respect to the sun. In each of the four positions, N. (or 
 the North Pole) slants towards the right hand, or the East ; 
 and S. (or the South Pole) towards the left hand, or the 
 West. Now, when the earth is at D, we may see that 
 the North Pole is slanted away from the sun ; when at B. 
 it is slanted towards him, and the South Pole the contrary 
 
 5 
 
66 THE SEASONS. 
 
 in each case. At A and C each pole receives an equal 
 portion of the sun's light during the day, and is equally 
 in darkness for the night ; the night and the day being at 
 these two periods of equal length, namely, twelve hours 
 each, all over the world. Now, we all know that in Eng- 
 land, during the latter part of June, the days are at the 
 longest : the sun rises soon after three o'clock ; at mid-day 
 he is high over head ; and he does not disappear till nearly 
 ten o'clock, and it is hardly dark all night. And if, at this 
 time of the year, we went still further north for instance, 
 to Sweden, we should find the days still longer, and the 
 nights still shorter than in England. Further north still, 
 as in Lapland or Iceland, we should have no night at all, 
 but the sun would continue above the horizon for many 
 days together ; that is, for many revolutions of the earth 
 on its axis. On the other hand, at the very same time of 
 the year, namely, the latter end of June, the South Pole is 
 slanted away from the sun, as much as the North Pole is 
 slanted towards it, and instead of there being no darkness 
 there, there is no daylight. Figure B shows the position 
 of the earth with respect to the sun on the 21st of June, 
 which is the longest day in the northern, and the shortest 
 day in the southern hemisphere. On the other hand, the 
 21st of December is the shortest day in our northern hemi- 
 
THE SEASONS. 67 
 
 sphere, and the longest in the southern ; and, on that day, 
 the earth is placed with respect to the sun as at figure D, 
 with the South Pole slanting towards the sun, and the 
 North Pole away from it. Figures A and C show the po- 
 sition of the earth at about the 21st of March and the 
 23d of September, when the day and night are equal all 
 over the world, whether north or south of the equator, 
 each being of course twelve hours long. These periods 
 are named the Vernal (or Spring) and the Autumnal Equi- 
 nox ; only, when it is autumn with us, (in September,) 
 and the days are becoming shorter, it is Spring, and the 
 days are becoming longer in South America, at the Cape 
 of Good Hope, in Australia, and New Zealand, and other 
 parts of the southern hemisphere. 
 
 Now, perhaps, you may have remarked that, in general, 
 the shortest day is not the coldest, nor is the longest day 
 the hottest in the year : according to the old proverb, 
 
 . " As the day lengthens, 
 
 The cold strengthens." 
 
 A little reflection will suggest the reason of this. On 
 our shortest day, the sun, besides shining on us for only 
 five hours out of the twenty-four, does not rise so high 
 above us at noon as he does by six o'clock in the morning 
 at midsummer his rays, instead of pouring down direct 
 
68 THE SEASONS. 
 
 upon our part of the earth, and penetrating its surface, 
 slant off, just as an arrow or cannon-ball, which strikes 
 any object obliquely, will either glance off, or, if it pene- 
 trate at all, will do so to a much less depth than if thrown 
 with the same force so as to strike directly, or in a direc- 
 tion perpendicular to the surface struck. That part of the 
 earth which is under these circumstances, loses every night 
 more heat than it has acquired during the day, and con- 
 tinues to do so for some time after the days have begun to 
 lengthen and the nights to decrease : and the greatest de- 
 gree of cold in England is generally experienced during 
 the second or third week of January, or nearly a mouth 
 after the shortest day. After that period, as the sun daily 
 shines upon us longer and rises higher, the snow and the 
 ice gradually melt under his influence ; the earth, during 
 the night, gradually retains more and more of the heat 
 that it has acquired during the day, until the buds and 
 flowers of spring burst upon us in all their beauty. The 
 heating process still continues to go on ; the earth, for 
 some weeks after the longest day, retains, during the 
 night, some of the heat it has acquired during the day, 
 and the summer is in its full glow during the last days of 
 July and the early part of August. 
 
 In our country, which has a proverbially changeable 
 
THE SEASONS. 69 
 
 climate, arising chiefly from its insular situation, there is a 
 considerable irregularity in the seasons chilly days some- 
 times occurring in the midst of summer, and mild days 
 during the depth of winter ; but, in some portions of the 
 earth, much greater regularity in this respect takes place. 
 In the tropics, the setting in of the rainy season can be 
 foretold almost to a day. 
 
 The wonderful and beautiful means which the All-wise 
 and All-merciful Creator has employed in bringing about 
 the changes of the seasons, can be but slightly glanced at 
 here ; but all can feel their influence and appreciate their 
 effects. Who does not see, with all the joy of hope, how 
 gradually spring brightens into summer ? Who is there 
 that has not indulged the pensive pleasures of memory as 
 autumn slowly fades into winter ? But not the less of 
 wisdom and beauty is there in the rougher moods of na- 
 ture. Consider how, first the formation, and then the 
 melting, of snow and ice, soften the ground, break up the 
 hard clods of the valley, and prepare it for the coming 
 spring how the blustering winds of March dispel the 
 damps and mists that hang about the earth, and, as they 
 swing to and fro, the yet leafless trees of the forest shake 
 off the dead and cankerous boughs, that would impede 
 the growth and vigor of the bursting buds how the 
 
70 THE SEASONS. 
 
 thunder-storms of autumn, and the keen blasts of winter, 
 purify the air, destroy noxious insects, and, by checking a 
 too luxurious growth, give vigor to all life, animal and 
 vegetable ! 
 
 On every hand, a thousand thousand wonders and 
 beauties meet the intelligent inquirer. The merest child 
 may readily -be made to understand some of them, and 
 learn how good God is to his creatures. The wisest man 
 on earth may find, at every step, new beauties and new 
 wonders open before him, of which he was before igno- 
 rant, and may continually find fresh cause of wonder and 
 admiration fresh cause to feel, with the great Newton, 
 that he, with all his knowledge, is but a little child, who 
 has picked up a few shells on the shore of the great ocean 
 of truth. 
 
 " Oh, God ! Oh, good beyond compare ! 
 If thus Thy meaner works are fair 
 If thus Thy bounty gilds the span 
 Of ruined life, ordained to man, 
 How glorious must those mansions be 
 Where Thy redeem'd will dwell with Thee !" 
 
 In looking at astronomical diagrams, we should remem- 
 ber that, after all, the best and most accurate can give but 
 
THE SEASONS. 71 
 
 a very inadequate idea of the magnitude of the heavenly 
 bodies, and of the enormous distances at which, when 
 compared even to that magnitude, they are placed from 
 each other. Sir John Herschel has given a familiar but 
 striking illustration of the comparative sizes and distances 
 of the bodies in our solar system, which we can hardly do 
 better than insert here : *' Choose any well-levelled field 
 or bowling-green. On it place a globe, two feet in diam- 
 eter: this will represent the Sun. Mercury will be repre- 
 sented by a grain of mustard-seed on the circumference 
 of a circle, one hundred and sixty-four feet in diameter, 
 for its orbit ; Venus, a pea, on a circle two hundred and 
 eighty-four feet in diameter ; the Earth, also a pea, on a 
 circle of four hundred and thirty feet ; Mars, a rather 
 large pin's head, on a circle of six hundred and fifty-four 
 feet ; Juno, Ceres, Pallas, and Vesta, grains of sand, in 
 orbits of from one thousand to one thousand two hundred 
 feet ; Jupiter, a moderately sized orange, on a circle near- 
 ly half-a-mile across ; Saturn, a small orange, on a circle 
 of four-fifths of a mile ; and Uranus, a full-sized cherry or 
 small plum, on the circumference of a circle more than a 
 mile and a half in diameter. To imitate the motions of 
 the planets in their orbits, Mercury must pass through a 
 space equal to its diameter in forty-one seconds ; Venus, 
 
72 THE SEASONS. 
 
 in four minutes, fourteen seconds ; the Earth, in seven 
 minutes ; Mars, in four minutes, forty-eight seconds ; Ju- 
 piter, in two hours, fifty-six minutes ; Saturn, in three 
 hours, thirteen minutes ; and Uranus, in five hours, sixteen 
 minutes." 
 
 " It may assist us," says Dr. Carpenter, " in comparing 
 this miniature representation with the reality, if we re- 
 member that the pigmy globe of two feet in diameter must 
 be expanded into a sphere of nearly nine hundred thousand 
 miles in diameter, or to two thousand three hundred and 
 forty-eight and a half million times its size. What, then, 
 must be the orbit of Uranus ? And yet the whole of this 
 vast system is but a point in the universe, no larger, in the 
 estimation of the inhabitants (if such there be) of the 
 nearest of the fixed stars, than the smallest of the satel- 
 lites of Saturn or Uranus appears to us." 
 

 
 
THE FALLS OF NIAGARA. 
 
 To him who has seen the mighty waters of the Western 
 Hemisphere, our British lakes and streams would, but for 
 the halo thrown around their names by the genii of his- 
 tory, poetry, and romance, shrink into insignificance. 
 
 In a map of the world, which, with nice distinctness, 
 and all the accuracy of " the latest discoveries," outlines 
 the coasts of the great Canadian lakes, and follows the 
 windings of the St. Lawrence, their mighty outlet to the 
 mightier ocean, we must look narrowly for some short 
 line meant to point out the course of our " royal-towered 
 Thames." There our " Severn swift" appears too small 
 to drown a fly ; while Trent, 
 
 " That like some earth-born giant spreads 
 His thirsty arms along the indented meads," 
 
 has probably escaped the engraver's touch altogether. 
 
 The beauties of Windermere and Ullswater, and the 
 
 
 
 sterner glories of Loch Lomond, if they appear at all, ap- 
 pear but as microscopic spots, too minute for any distinc- 
 tion of form or direction. 
 
74 THE FALLS OF NIAGARA. 
 
 But let us direct our attention to a map of the north- 
 eastern portion of the great continent of America. See 
 how deeply is its coast indented with bays and inlets 
 how, from Hudson's Bay and the shores of Labrador and 
 Newfoundland in the east, to the foot of the Rocky Moun- 
 tains in the " far west," the surface of the country is stud- 
 ded with lakes of every variety of form and size and 
 what a net-work of streams connects these with each 
 other, and with the main ocean ! Let us, in fancy, ascend 
 the ridge of the Rocky Mountains, the northern extremity 
 of that vast chain, which, under various names, runs 
 southward for nine thousand miles, throughout the length 
 of the two western continents, until it sinks into the ocean 
 depths, amid the frowning desolation of Terra del Fuego. 
 
 Clouds, from the waters of the Pacific, gather around the 
 summits where we stand ; they roll down the eastern side 
 of the range, and, descending into the plains at our feet, 
 in snow, and mist, and rain, they form and feed the count- 
 less waters which lie between us and the Atlantic. Down 
 many a cascade they leap they flow through many a 
 winding river, and widen into many a lake, until they are 
 poured into that mighty mass of waters, broad and deep, 
 known pre-eminently as the " Great Lakes" of Canada. 
 
 It has been calculated that these, with the St. Law- 
 
. THE FALLS OF NIAGARA. 75 
 
 rence, by which their waters flow into the Atlantic, 
 contain one-third of all the fresh water on the globe at 
 any rate they form by far the largest connected body of 
 fresh water on its surface. The large inland seas of the 
 old world the Caspian, the Euxine, the Mediterranean, 
 and the Baltic, are all nearly as salt as the ocean itself. 
 The cause of this difference has been variously stated ; 
 but, however interesting, it would lead us into too wide a 
 range of subjects for discussion here. 
 
 The three higher lakes Superior, Michigan, and Hu- 
 ron, together cover an extent of fifty-eight thousand 
 square miles, and their average depth is about nine hun- 
 dred feet. Erie, which forms the next outlet towards the 
 sea, is much shallower ; its mean depth being only one 
 hundred and twenty feet, and this depth has been gradu- 
 ally decreasing ; so that it is almost certain, that in the 
 course of years, what is now the basin of the lake will be 
 filled up, presenting, instead of its present broad sheet of 
 water, a fertile alluvial plain, watered by the St. Law- 
 rence and its tributary rivers, which would then connect 
 the lakes Huron and Ontario by a stream of between two 
 hundred and three hundred miles in length. 
 
 At the northeastern end of Erie, its shores approach, 
 until they leave an outlet of only three quarters of a mile 
 
76 THE FALLS OF NIAGARA. 
 
 in width. Through this narrow passage, then, are poured 
 the superabundant waters of the four great lakes, rapidly 
 at first ; until the rocks again recede, and leave a wider 
 course for the river, which then flows swiftly, but 
 smoothly on for about twenty miles. At this part of 
 its course the stream again rushes tumultuously down a 
 succession of rapids, which are about a mile across, and 
 twenty-five feet deep ; and then, divided by Goat Island, 
 at the very verge of the stupendous cataract, whose cease- 
 less roar is heard afar off, the river, in two broad sheets, 
 leaps down a precipice of one hundred and sixty feet, sheer 
 into the gulf below. A cloud of spray rises high above the 
 woody banks that overhang the gulf, in whose depths the 
 waters, as if maddened and giddy with their awful leap, 
 whirl, and eddy, and toss, and at length again pour on- 
 wards in milk-white foam. 
 
 But no words can describe the terrific beauty of the 
 scene. The traveller, on first beholding it, is lost and be- 
 wildered : he visits it again and again, in hopes to become 
 familiar with its glories ; he looks at it from every ap- 
 proachable point of view. New beauties delight him 
 new wonders appal him at every step. From the dizzy 
 table-rock that overhangs the fall, he gazes, clinging con- 
 vulsively, into the depths below : he descends the crags, 
 
THE FALLS OF NIAGARA. 77 
 
 slippery with the ceaseless spray, creeps beneath the 
 water-worn rocks, behind the very cataract itself, and 
 gazes upward into the emerald twilight that struggles 
 through the dread cavern of rushing water. At length, 
 awe-struck, and yet unsated by the sight, he leaves the 
 spot, and vainly strives, by all the efforts of pen and pen- 
 cil, to impart to others the glories and the wonders with 
 which his own soul is overpowered. 
 
 In descriptions of scenes like these, it depends upon the 
 mind of the reader whether facts of a statistical nature re- 
 pel or attract the imagination whether they give force 
 and clearness to the ideas, or weary and distract the atten- 
 tion. I will, therefore, only mention, that in the Falls of 
 Niagara it is calculated that upwards of one million of 
 tons of water are every minute precipitated for a depth of 
 one hundred and seventy feet ; and refer such of my read- 
 ers as may wish for further particulars respecting this 
 king of cataracts, to the works of some of the many trav- 
 ellers who have, within the last few years, visited and 
 described it. 
 
 The cut represents an incident which took place in 1836, 
 at which time Canada was in a very unsettled state. The 
 inhabitants of Lower Canada are principally of French 
 origin, and retain, to a considerable extent, the manners, 
 
78 THE FALLS OF NIAGARA. 
 
 language, and customs of their Norman ancestors, un- 
 changed, since the day when General Wolfe conquered 
 Montcalm on the heights above Quebec, and the province 
 was lost to France. Upper Canada has been settled, at a 
 more recent period, by emigrants from Great Britain and 
 Ireland. The two provinces, though both subject to the 
 British crown, were governed by different laws. The two 
 races of men were at once jealous of each other, and dis- 
 satisfied with the mode in which they were governed by 
 the deputies of a distant sovereign ; and both colonies be- 
 came a scene of heart-burning, recrimination, and strife, 
 until an open rebellion against the British government 
 broke out. 
 
 In Upper Canada, the insurgents, headed by Mackenzie, 
 obtained possession of Navy Island, which is situated 
 about five miles above the Falls of Niagara. They forti- 
 fied it, and obtained supplies of arms and provisions from 
 the United States territory, in which considerable numbers 
 along the border co-operated with them, under the name 
 of Sympathizers ; calculating that Canada was about 
 to throw off the dominion of the proud little island be- 
 yond the Atlantic, and to form one of the states of the 
 Union. For this, however, the event proved that but a 
 small portion of the population of Canada was yet pre- 
 
THE FALLS OF NIAGARA. 79 
 
 pared, and the insurgents received but little encourage- 
 ment from their fellow-colonists, who were still, for the 
 most part, disposed to retain their allegiance to the British 
 crown, and raised volunteer regiments to co-operate with 
 the regular soldiers in opposing the progress of the re- 
 bellion throughout the province. 
 
 In the mean time constant communications were kept 
 up between the possessors of Navy Island and their 
 friends on the American shore ; and it was believed by 
 the British, that the Caroline steamboat was hired by 
 Mackenzie to carry arms and ammunition from Buffalo, a 
 distance of about twelve miles down the river, to Navy 
 Island. After having made one or two trips, the Caroline 
 was one evening moored alongside the wharf at Buffalo, - 
 in readiness for service on the morrow. It was a still, 
 frosty night, and the ripple of the water against the ves- 
 sel's side mingled soothingly with the distant roar of Nia- 
 gara, and lulled to sleep the crew of the ill-fated vessel. 
 Suddenly, through the darkness, boats shot alongside the 
 Caroline, armed men climbed hastily and tumultuously to 
 her decks, and, after a brief struggle, overpowered those 
 on board, before their allies on shore could interfere. The 
 ropes that moored the vessel to the wharf were cut, and 
 she was quickly towed into the middle of the river; and, 
 
 X 
 
80 THE FALLS OF NIAGARA. 
 
 in less time than it takes to tell the tale, the Caroline, 
 borne along by the force of the stream, was swiftly gliding 
 onward towards the Falls. 
 
 On both sides of the river the sleeping population, 
 roused by the struggle, hastened to the shore to watch the 
 onward progress of the ill-fated vessel. Now, broadside 
 to the stream, she glided on, distinct in the still moon- 
 light then, whirled round by some eddy, her course was 
 stayed, as if in a convulsive struggle to escape then, on 
 again, faster and faster yet, past the silent woods under 
 the dark shadow of the bold headland and then, emerging 
 into the moonlight, she rushed madly into the rapids that 
 precede the fatal plunge. As she neared Goat Island, 
 midway in the stream, at the very verge of the cataract, 
 she glided into the fearful "torrent's smoothness ere it 
 leap below ;" while the spectators forgot their shouts, 
 either of triumph or of rage, and held their breath for very 
 awe. One moment more, and the fatal plunge is taken 
 into the dark abyss ; and then, struggling and whirling 
 from out the chaos of waters planks and beams splin- 
 tered, and torn, and broken, are all that remain of the 
 Caroline. 
 
 Where were the crew ? Was any human being on 
 board, alive or dead ? Were any slain in the struggle that 
 
THE FALLS OF NIAGARA. 81 
 
 preceded the capture ? Such were the questions asked 
 and answered, with all the exaggeration and rancor of 
 party and national excitement ; and a war between Great 
 Britain and the United States of America appeared for a 
 time inevitable. Happily for both nations, this was 
 averted. There existed among both people sufficient men 
 of good sense and good feeling to overpower the folly and 
 wickedness of those who would force, into all the horrors 
 of war and bloodshed, two nations of kindred blood, speak- 
 ing the same language and professing the same faith; 
 and, after anxious months of excitement, the popular feel- 
 ing gradually subsided, and peace was maintained. 
 
 McLeod, a British subject, who had been active in the 
 seizure and destruction of the Caroline, imprudently 
 ventured into the United States territory before the excite- 
 ment had abated. He was recognised, arrested, and im- 
 prisoned, on a charge of murder and rqbbery, The trial 
 excited great interest, but ended in his acquittal, greatly 
 to the credit of his judges, who would not suffer their 
 national feelings to overpower tl^eir sense of law and 
 right. 
 
THE DIAMOND. 
 
 IT is somewhat difficult to give a perfectly satisfactory 
 reason why mankind should attach so high a value to the 
 diamond. We may mention its brilliancy when polished, 
 its hardness, and its rarity; but the possession of these 
 properties to any conceivable extent, seems hardly suffi- 
 cient to account for the enormous sums which have been 
 given for a stone, of which the largest known specimen in 
 existence weighs only eleven ounces. For instance, the 
 Pitt diamond was purchased by the Regent Duke of Orleans 
 for 135,000 ; the Pigott diamond was valued at 40,000 ; 
 that of the Queen of Portugal, weighing eleven ounces, 
 has been valued at 425,000 ; and the gem in the sceptre 
 of the Russian empire, about the size of a pigeon's egg, 
 was bought for nearly 150,000. 
 
 It is true, that the value of gold and silver (and indeed 
 of every thing else) is equally dependent on their compar- 
 ative rarity ; but those metals, being in constant use as 
 universal and most convenient media of exchange, and 
 standards of comparative value for all other articles, the 
 
THE DIAMOND. 83 
 
 estimation in which they are held seems less capricious 
 and artificial. 
 
 And after all, what is a diamond ? Nothing but a piece 
 of crystallized carbon. And if as seems not at all im- 
 possible some fortunate chemist should succeed in thus 
 imitating the process of nature, by subjecting charcoal or 
 carbon to some process which shall cause crystallization, 
 we may have diamonds worth but little more than bits of 
 very fine glass. Till then, however, this gem will proba- 
 bly retain its place in the estimation of the royal, the 
 noble, and the wealthy will still flash around the diademed 
 brows of sovereigns, and descend, from generation to gen- 
 eration, with the other ancestral honors of the peerage 
 the deer-stocked park, the princely mansion, with its sur- 
 rounding woods, and the rent-roll of a province. 
 
 Diamonds have been principally found in India and the 
 Brazils. The mine of Golconda in India, so proverbially 
 celebrated, is now nearly exhausted, and it is by the 
 Brazils that the principal supply of this precious stone is 
 at present furnished. The most celebrated diamond- 
 mines in this last-named country are those of Serrado 
 Frio, which district is also known as the Arrayal Diaman- 
 tino. or Diamond District. It is surrounded by rocks al- 
 most inaccessible, and was formerly so strictly guarded, 
 
84 THE DIAMOND. 
 
 that even the governor of the province was not allowed 
 to enter without the special permission of the director of 
 the mines. 
 
 The diamonds are found imbedded along with flints, in a 
 ferruginous earth, called cascalhao, which is dug, and taken 
 to be searched for the precious stones, by filtering through 
 a running stream. The earth is dug during the dry 
 season, when the beds of rivers and torrents are dry, and 
 the diamond-sand can more easily be obtained. When 
 the rainy season commences, the negroes are employed in 
 washing the cascalhao. This is generally performed (as 
 shown in the cut) under sheds, for the protection of the 
 workmen from the weather. Along the sheds are placed 
 raised seats for the overseers, each of whom watches eight 
 negroes, as they search for diamonds among the sand and 
 flint of the cascalhao, as it is washed by the stream that 
 runs through the shed. Each negro works in a separate 
 box, and is entirely naked, except during extreme cold, 
 when he is allowed a waistcoat, without either lining or 
 pocket, lest he should secrete a diamond when found. 
 He is furnished with a kind of handspike, to separate the 
 sand and flint, and when he discovers a diamond, he stands 
 upright, and claps his hands as a signal to the overseer, 
 and then looks anxiously on while it is weighed and ex- 
 
THE DIAMOND. 85 
 
 amined. For if the poor fellow has been fortunate enough 
 to find a diamond weighing seventeen carats, he is freed 
 from slavery, amid much ceremony and rejoicing. He is 
 crowned with a wreath of flowers, and carried in proces- 
 sion to the administrator, who pays his owner for him, and 
 sets him at liberty. The discovery of a stone of less 
 weight is also rewarded by gifts and premiums, according 
 to the value of the gem, down even to a pinch of to- 
 bacco. 
 
 The diamond, when thus discovered, is deposited by the 
 overseer in a large wooden bowl of water, hung in the 
 middle of the shed ; and at the end of the day the whole 
 are collected, weighed, and registered, before delivering 
 them to the proprietor. 
 
 Notwithstanding every imaginable precaution to prevent 
 thefts, the negroes find means to purloin and secrete dia- 
 monds, and afterwards sell them at a low price to the 
 smugglers ; and these, in their turn, are often deceived by 
 the negroes, who, by some simple process, can give crys- 
 tals, of but little value, the appearance of rough diamonds, 
 so as completely to imitate them. 
 
 It is supposed that about 20,000 negroes are now em- 
 ployed in the diamond-mines of Brazil. But, after all, the 
 diamond is a product of far less value to this country 
 
86 THE DIAMOND. 
 
 than might be supposed. It has been estimated, from a 
 careful calculation, that the total value of the diamonds 
 discovered during eighty years, from 1740 to 1820, was 
 about 3,475,537. This amount, in only eighteen months, 
 is exported from the Brazils in sugar and coffee only. 
 One-fifth of the total value of the diamonds found belongs 
 to the crown. From the mines, the diamonds are conveyed 
 to the capital on mules, and escorted by a strong guard of 
 soldiers. 
 
 The hardness of the diamond is proverbial, and to this 
 quality it owes its chief, if not its sole utility. By no 
 other substance than a diamond can one of these gems be 
 scratched or ground. To do this is the business of the 
 lapidary, and great patience, skill, and taste, are required 
 in grinding down the natural rough and irregular surface 
 of the stone, into such a regular, geometrical shape, as 
 shall least diminish the weight and size of the gem, and 
 at the same time shall best display its lustre when 
 polished, and reflect the varied light from its brilliant 
 facets. 
 
 In some directions, of which none but a skilful and ex- 
 perienced lapidary can judge, the diamond may be split in 
 layers, or laminae, and by the judicious use of this means, 
 the tedious process of grinding is partly avoided. 
 
THE DIAMOND. 
 
 87 
 
 Great expense is sometimes incurred in thus preparing 
 these gems for the goldsmith, whose business it is to fix 
 them, or " set" them, as it is termed, in appropriate mount- 
 ings such as rings for the finger ; the locket for the 
 wrist ; the crown and sceptre of royalty ; or the sword- 
 hilt of the fortunate soldier. 
 
 The diamond once in the possession of Napoleon, and 
 which was purchased for 30,000, cost 3,000 additional 
 for grinding and polishing. 
 
 
LONDON, PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 How can we give an idea of London to one who has 
 never visited it, when some even of those who have spent 
 their lives in wandering amid its wilderness of houses have 
 never seen one half of its extent, and have still less knowl- 
 edge of its wealth, its commerce, and its population ? An 
 intelligent Frenchman said very truly, " It is not a town ; 
 it is a province covered with houses" 
 
 Before the era of railways, it used to grow by degrees 
 upon the country visitor as he approached its more con- 
 centrated masses of streets and houses, and his notions of 
 the great city had time to accommodate themselves grad- 
 ually to the real state of things. As he rolled along the 
 turnpike-road outside some well-appointed "four-horse 
 coach," he saw before him for half a day before he had 
 reached his destination, a long, low, dingy cloud in the 
 distant horizon, which the coachman's whip would point out 
 as " London smoke." There it hung ; visible, while yet he 
 was among breezy commons of heath and furze, or under 
 
\N< IKN'T MoMF. OK r.IGHTINr, rov|O\ 
 
 

 
 
LONDON, PAST AND PRESENT. 89 
 
 waving boughs that shadowed the dusty road. As he 
 rolled along, instead of detached villages or well-defined 
 towns, separated by long intervals of field, and common, and 
 copse, enlivened here and there with the detached farm- 
 houses, barns, and road-side inns, the country gentle- 
 man's mansion, and the gipsy's tent the road became 
 all village, one joining on to another in quick succession, 
 sadly taxing the memory of the bewildered traveller, who 
 had hitherto asked most perseveringly the name of each 
 town he had passed through. He seemed, for the first 
 time, to be in two places at once in one locality before 
 he was out of another. 
 
 On he rolled, and the continuous village became a 
 town ; the road gradually concentrated into a street, and 
 his "long coach," with its fleet four-in-hand, (the pro- 
 prietor's "crack team," to drive through London with,) 
 threaded its mazy way amidst shoals of strange and va- 
 rious vehicles, and looked superior to them all. There 
 were the lumbering omnibus, the busy scrambling cab, the 
 elegant carriage, with splendid hammer-cloth and be- 
 wigged and liveried coachmen and flunkies gigs, phae- 
 tons, and market-carts, drays, vans, and wagons of all 
 shapes and dimensions, and still the confusion grew more 
 dizzy and confounding, till a jarring crash upon the 
 
90 LONDON, FAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 paved street aroused the bewildered traveller, and told him 
 that he had at length reached the stony heart of London. 
 But, alas ! with few and rare exceptions, " we have 
 changed all that" for the railway and the steam-engine. 
 Onward, onward still we press, faster and faster yet. 
 But now, and the varied sights of rural life were flitting 
 by us in quick succession, each no sooner glanced at than 
 it is gone ; a moment more, and in its place, as by some 
 magic process, there is the glare of shops, the rattle of 
 wheels, the busy hum of myriads of human beings the 
 ceaseless roar of the mightiest city of the earth ! 
 
 Hill and dale, hedge-row and heath, the cottage with 
 roses, the meadow and its quiet herd, " forty feeding like 
 one," the shepherd and his flock, the mansion in stately 
 solitude, with all its tall and ancestral trees, all these, and 
 more, were before the traveller a moment since, and seem 
 before him still, mingling in strange confusion with the 
 Great Babel into which he is so suddenly plunged, while, 
 confused by the abrupt contrast of sights and sounds 
 which greet him, he gazes with blank amaze on all 
 around, scarce knowing what he sees or what he hears. 
 
 London was an important city the capital of England 
 a thousand years ago ; and it has been growing, and 
 spreading, and condensing, almost without a check, from 
 
LONDON, PAST AND PRESENT. 91 
 
 that day to this. Growing for a thousand years, and 
 growing still, faster than ever ! Still creeping along the 
 banks of that noble river, to the depth and security of 
 whose waters the city owes its rise, its increase, and its 
 prosperity. 
 
 The marsh through which Caesar and his legions waded 
 has long given place to the busy wharf, with its piles of 
 merchandise from every clime, its huge masses of ware- 
 houses, dark and lofty, beneath whose shadow crowd the 
 barge and the steamboat. The streams to which Saxon 
 maidens were wont to resort " to gather simples," now 
 grope their subterranean way beneath halls devoted to 
 trade and commerce, and the administration of justice ; 
 the resort of the merchant-princes of England ; the sanc- 
 tuary for the vast treasures of the Bank of England, and 
 its numerous satellites of Lombard-street ; and the palace 
 of the chief magistrate of England's and the world's chief 
 city. The forest, where once ranged the wild boar, the 
 wolf, and the antlered stag, has given place to the picture- 
 gallery and the triumphal column ; to the square, the ter- 
 race, and the crescent, with their luxurious mansions, 
 tenanted by nobles and senators ; to long vistas of streets 
 in endless succession, dazzling with wealth and splendor 
 unknown to Rome or Babylon of old. 
 
92 LONDON, PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 Nearly a thousand years ago (in A. D. 885) London, 
 which had been sacked and burned by the Danes, was 
 being rebuilt by King Alfred, whose galleys rode, un- 
 checked by a single bridge, along the Thames, when now 
 his waters reflect many an arch of granite or iron, above 
 whose crown ebbs and flows a tide as ceaseless as that 
 which glides beneath its shadow. 
 
 For nearly two hundred years after the time of Alfred, 
 Saxon and Dane struggled for the realm of England, with 
 various success. But amid the fierce conflicts London 
 still grew on, and when King Harold (in 1066) passed 
 through the city on his hurried march to the fatal field of 
 Hastings, he dispatched from London seven hundred 
 vessels to intercept the Norman invaders in the flight so 
 fondly and so vainly anticipated by the too confiding 
 Saxons. And when Duke William, after his great vic- 
 tory, appeared before the city, the warlike population, 
 numerous even then, defended the walls ; and the con- 
 queror, compelled to abandon his idea of obtaining instant 
 possession of the capital, ravaged the surrounding country, 
 intercepted the communication with the Saxons of the 
 north, and cut off the supplies, until the citizens, 
 threatened with the horrors of famine, and discour- 
 aged by the supineness and incapacity of the Saxon 
 
LONDON, PAST AND PRESENT. 93 
 
 earls and thanes, made terms with William, at Berkhamp- 
 stead. 
 
 Passing by another two hundred years through the 
 horrible oppressions of the early Norman kings, the de- 
 vastating wars of Stephen and Matilda, and the Crusades 
 we come to the era of Magna Charta ; and find a par- 
 liament at Westminster struggling with the weak and un- 
 popular Henry III., the king promising redress of griev- 
 ances in hopes of obtaining supplies, and the parliament 
 withholding, until they have some better security than the 
 word of a king, which had been so often violated. Once, 
 in his need, he was counselled to sell all his plate and 
 jewels. " Who will buy them ?" said he. " The citizens 
 of London, of course," was the reply. " By my troth," 
 said Henry, bitterly, " if the treasures of Augustus were 
 put up to sale, the citizens would be the purchasers ! 
 These clowns, who assume the style of barons, abound in 
 all things, while we are wanting common necessaries." 
 From this time the king was more than ever inimical 'to 
 the city, and to injure its commerce, (then amid wars, and 
 plunder, and oppression as now in peace and security 
 the source of all its weajth,) Henry established a fair at 
 Westminster, which was to last fifteen days, during which 
 all trading was prohibited in London. What is now 
 
94 LONDON, PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 Charing Cross was then a village in the fields, midway 
 between the rival cities, which have long since mingled 
 into one. 
 
 In 1218 the forest of Middlesex was cleared, and the 
 citizens of London were allowed to build there. The 
 Tower and old London Bridge in the east, and West- 
 minster Abbey in the west, were the principal buildings of 
 this era which have existed till our day. 
 
 Through the next two hundred years the wealth and 
 trade of London continued steadily to increase. The 
 citizens obtained from the mighty Plantagenets privileges 
 and rights, in exchange for the loans by which only those 
 warlike sovereigns were enabled to carry on their con- 
 quests in France ; and amidst the brilliant but useless 
 glories of Crecy, and Poitiers, and Agincourt, London 
 carried on a profitable and increasing trade with Flanders 
 with the extensive and fertile provinces in southern and 
 western France, which owned allegiance to the English 
 crown with Spain and the Mediterranean southward 
 and as far northward as the Baltic. The civil wars of the 
 Roses, like the foreign ones with France, gave but little 
 interruption to the progress of London, which generally 
 supported the House of York ; the princes of which 
 family relied less on the power of the barons than on that 
 
LONDON, PAST AND PRESENT. 95 
 
 of the commons, whose favor they courted, and whose 
 privileges they increased and confirmed on many occasions. 
 
 Lanterns were first hung out of citizens' houses in the 
 principal streets in 1416; before, and even after that time, 
 watchmen with fire-baskets, such as are represented in 
 the cut, kept watch through the night before the houses 
 of the nobility and at other important stations. 
 
 Year after year rolled on ; wooden houses were replaced 
 by those of brick ; old streets were paved and widened, 
 and new streets stretched into the fields in every direc- 
 tion ; wharves and warehouses were 'built by the river 
 side ; churches and palaces arose in every quarter ; the 
 population rapidly increased ; and two or three hundred 
 years ago, when London was not half its present size, suc- 
 cessive sovereigns issued proclamations and edicts, for- 
 bidding any further increase to a city, which was even 
 then thought to have extended beyond all bounds of rea- 
 son and safety. 
 
 In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the improve- 
 ments and increase continued. The Royal Exchange was 
 built ; the new river supplied individual houses in the 
 metropolis with water ; sewers were dug ; and hackney- 
 coaches plied the streets for hire. The great plague, 
 speedily followed by the great fire of London in 1G60, 
 
96 LONDON, PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 checked the progress of the city, but only to enable it to 
 advance more rapidly and more safely. The latter event, 
 which destroyed all the most densely-built portions of the 
 metropolis, enabled- Sir Christopher Wren, although he 
 was not allowed to carry out his plan of improvement to 
 the desired extent, to change its appearance and charac- 
 ter by wider streets, better built houses, and more com- 
 plete draining. In consequence of these improvements, 
 the health of the inhabitants was greatly promoted. The 
 plague, which until then had constantly lurked about the 
 back streets and narrow lanes by the water's side, and 
 which on particular occasions burst out with depopulating 
 violence, was no longer a recognised visitor ; and the * 
 virulence of other diseases was much abated. 
 
 Nevertheless, great as was this advance, the contrast 
 between the London of a hundred years ago and the 
 London of the present day is as great. The fathers of 
 many now living, could remember seeing the heads of the 
 Scotch lords, who had risen in arms for the Stuarts, rotting 
 on Temple-bar, telling a disgraceful tale of barbarous 
 and pitiful revenge, unworthy of a Christian government 
 and people. The dim oil lamps, which just rendered 
 visible the darkness of night, winked at many a deed of 
 violence and outrage, which the broad glare of the gas 
 
LONDON, PAST AND PRESENT. 97 
 
 lights (first used in Pall Mall, in 1816) has scared away. 
 Within the last fifty years have been formed the docks and 
 their surrounding warehouses, which now line the river 
 for six miles below London Bridge, and afford accommo- 
 dation for vessels of the largest size ; the huge Indiaman 
 from either hemisphere, with sugar, cotton, tea, silk, 
 spices, &c. ; the splendidly fitted American packets ; 
 the wool-ships of Australia; the whalers from Green- 
 land and the Antarctic; timber ships from Canada and 
 the Baltic ; mixed fleets of smaller vessels from every 
 coast. 
 
 Fifty years ago, and the power of steam to propel 
 vessels in spite of wind and tide, was treated as a chimera 
 too absurd for experiment ; and now hundreds of steamers, 
 of every size, with their black chimneys and long streams 
 of smoke, wend their swift way along old Father Thames, 
 churning his waters, and raising on his bosom a mimic 
 sea, whose heaving wave bids dance the light wherry as 
 it skims along, meets the cumbrous barge with alternate 
 heave and plunge, and dashes in foam against the tiers of 
 merchantmen fast anchored in the stream. Still more 
 recently the railroad, with all its wonders, stretches from 
 the city in every direction, and encloses a wider and yet 
 wider circuit of provinces in its embrace, until it bids the 
 
 7 
 
98 LONDON, PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 remotest corner of the isle give quick response to every 
 pulsation of the " mighty heart" of London. 
 
 The population of the metropolis, (including by that 
 term the cities of London and Westminster, the five par- 
 liamentary boroughs, and the parish of Chelsea.) is now 
 nearly two millions, equal to the united population of the 
 four largest cities on the continent of Europe ; namely, 
 Paris, Petersburg, Naples, and Vienna ; and of these five 
 Paris has nearly double the number of inhabitants of the 
 largest of the remainder, containing 910,000, while Peters- 
 burg has 470,000, Vienna and Naples each about 350,000 
 inhabitants. 
 
 The immense population of the capital of the British 
 empire consumes every year at least 1,200,000 quarters of 
 wheat, about 1 \ million of sheep, nearly 200,000 bullocks, 
 25,000 calves, 25,000 pigs ; besides poultry, game, fish, 
 vegetables, and fruit in incalculable quantities. About 
 12,000 cows supply the citizens daily with milk ; 72 mil- 
 lions of gallons of porter and ale are annually drunk in 
 London ; half the newspapers in the United Kingdom are 
 printed there. The eight great water-companies supply 
 about 200,000 houses with nearly 250 millions of gallons 
 of water yearly. About 90,000 gas lights are nightly lit, 
 and consume on the average 10 millions of cubic feet of 
 
LONDON, PAST AND PRESENT. 99 
 
 gas every twenty-four hours. But we might fill a volume 
 with mere glimpses of this wonderful city such volumes 
 exist and yet before a visitor can form an adequate idea 
 of its size and its population, its abounding wealth and 
 its squalid poverty, its contrasts of magnificence and 
 wretchedness, he must have persevered day after day in 
 exploring its various quarters, mixed with all classes of 
 society, inspected its hospitals and its mansions, its picture- 
 galleries and its temples, its docks and its bridges, its dark 
 corners of crime and misery, its splendid exhibitions of 
 wealth and taste ; and if he have a heart to feel and a 
 head to think, he will go to his rural home with food for 
 meditation for many days, a wiser, and, if he improve his 
 opportunities, a better man. 
 
STAFFA, AND FINGAL'S CAVE. 
 
 THE stormy sea that dashes against the western shore 
 of Scotland is studded with a multitude of rocky islands, 
 of various shapes and sizes, known as the Hebrides, or 
 Western isles. Of these, one of the smallest, but in some 
 respects the most remarkable, is Staffa, of which our illus- 
 tration presents a view from the sea. 
 
 It is in shape an irregular oval, about a mile and a half 
 in circuit, and except at the solitary landing-place on the 
 northeast, is bounded by precipitous cliffs, hollowed by 
 numerous caverns. The cliffs are, as may be seen from 
 the cut, for the most part formed of basaltic columns of a 
 regular geometrical shape ; each column being generally 
 about two feet in diameter, and having either five, six, 
 seven, or nine equal sides and angles, and varying in 
 height up to one hundred and forty-four feet above the 
 sea. 
 
 Of the numerous caves that have been worn through the 
 lapse of ages by the ceaseless surge of the Atlantic, the 
 most celebrated is FingaFs Cave : 
 

 
STAFFA, AND FINGAL'S CAVE. 101 
 
 " That wondrous dome, 
 Where, as to shame the temples deck'd 
 By skill of earthly architect, 
 Nature herself, it seem'd, would raise 
 A minster to her Maker's praise ! 
 Not for a meaner use ascend 
 Her columns, or her arches bend ; 
 Nor of a theme less solemn tells 
 That mighty surge, that ebbs and swells ; 
 And still between each awful pause, 
 From the high vault an answer draws, 
 In varied tone, prolong'd and high, 
 That mocks the organ's melody." 
 
 To this noble description from the Lord of the Isles the 
 author appended a note, which we cannot do better than 
 introduce, secure that a sketch, both in poetry and prose, 
 from such a master of descriptive writing as Sir Walter 
 Scott, will do all that words can do to portray the glo- 
 rious scene with clearness, unrivalled save to an eye- 
 witness. 
 
 " It would be unpardonable to detain the reader upon 
 a wonder so often described, and yet so incapable of being 
 understood by description. The palace of Neptune is 
 even grander upon the second than the first view. The 
 stupendous columns which form the sides of the cave ; the 
 
102 STAFFA, AND FINGAL'S CAVE. 
 
 depth and strength of the tide, which rolls in deep and 
 heavy swell up to the extremity of the vault ; the variety 
 of tints formed by white, crimson, and yellow stalactites, 
 or petrifactions, which occupy the vacancies between the 
 base of the broken pillars forming the roof, and inter- 
 secting them with a rich, curious, and variegated chasing 
 occupying each interstice ; the corresponding variety 
 below water, where the ocean rolls over a dark red or 
 violet-colored rock, from which, as from a base, the 
 basaltic columns arise ; the tremendous noise of the 
 swelling tide, mingling with the deep-toned echoes of the 
 vaults, are circumstances elsewhere unparalleled." 
 
 To this we need only add, that Fingal's Cave is about 
 two hundred and thirty feet deep, and at flood-tide and in 
 moderate weather, a boat may sail from its entrance to its 
 extremity. The height from the water to the centre of 
 the roof is nearly seventy feet, and the columns that line 
 its sides are nearly perpendicular. 
 
THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY. 
 
 DUE south of Staffa, eighty or ninety miles across the 
 sea, and forming almost the northeastern extremity of 
 Ireland, we find another magnificent collection of basaltic 
 columns, called the Giant's Causeway. 
 
 Indeed the whole coast of the neighborhood, and the 
 opposite island of Rathlin, abound with these wonderful 
 specimens of Nature's architecture : column piled against 
 column, in every variety of combination, accurately chis- 
 elled, and in various forms, (some grand, and some gro- 
 tesque,) by no human architect : there they stand, as 
 they have stood for thousands of years, a barrier against 
 the Atlantic's stormy billows, which, winter after winter, 
 vainly against those adamantine pillars roll, and roar, 
 and dash their angry spray. 
 
 And yet these appear but to be the relics of a 
 mightier pile, if geologists reason truly. "Those," 
 says Dr. James Johnson, in his Irish Tour, " who 
 have explored Staffa, on one side of the Channel, 
 and the Columns* Gigantis, on the other, must have 
 
104 THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY. 
 
 come to the conclusion, that these are merely the ele- 
 vated extremities of a huge chain of basaltic pillars, 
 stretching under the ocean, from the coast of Argyll to 
 that of Antrim. One portion of this stupendous bridge, 
 or causeway, still stands in the midst of a boisterous 
 ocean namely, the Island of Rathlin, exhibiting the 
 same formation, and presenting perpendicular cliffs 
 of two or three hundred feet in height, to the foam- 
 ing surge. The Irish extremity of this mighty bridge, 
 or partition, is on an infinitely grander scale than 
 the Scottish. The pillars of Staffa are mere dwarfs 
 compared with their brethren, the Irish giants, on the 
 opposite shore. The basaltic columns of the Antrim 
 coast rise to a stupendous altitude, and present a greater 
 variety of grotesque, majestic, and fantastic figures than 
 the clouds of an autumnal sky during a radiant setting of 
 the sun." " How long this fire-formed barrier, between 
 two boisterous seas this volcanic chain of connection be- 
 tween two distant coasts, resisted the warfare of winds 
 and waves, no record will ever be found. Nothing now 
 remains on either shore but enormous masses and count- 
 less myriads of basaltic columns, wedged into causeways, 
 piled into cliffs, hollowed into caverns, bent into arches, 
 and arched into temples." 
 
THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY. 105 
 
 The Giant's Causeway itself is a natural mole or quay, 
 jutting out into the sea, and paved with the smooth and 
 flat tops of many-sided columns, whose sharp angles and 
 smooth sides fit so accurately one against the other, that 
 the blade of a knife can hardly be introduced between 
 them. It is as if by some giant power a vast number of 
 enormous piles had been driven into the bed of the sea, 
 their tops levelled, and the whole petrified. The causeway 
 consists of three distinct portions, the lowest of which is 
 only seen at low- water, and is about a thousand feet in 
 length; the others are somewhat shorter. As at StafFa, 
 the columns consist of various regular geometrical figures, 
 having from three to eight sides ; but the general form is 
 hexagonal. 
 
 The cliffs of all the coasts in these seas are frequented 
 at particular seasons of the year by immense flocks of sea- 
 birds ; as the gull, the cormorant, the eider-duck, and the 
 puffin. These, and many other species, in countless num- 
 bers, frequent the clefts and ledges of the rocks which 
 overhang the sea, and from their giddy height they glide 
 on smooth, extended wing, and skim along the ever-rest- 
 less surface of the mighty deep, in search of that food 
 which still, as in the dawn of time, " the waters bring forth 
 abundantly." To these retreats the venturous inhabitants 
 
106 THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY. 
 
 of the coasts follow them, with many devices : sometimes 
 from a boat, at the foot of the cliffs, some bold climber 
 will ascend the rock, and clinging to its face, find dan- 
 gerous footing in search of his game. At others, he and 
 his confederates will take a rope to the top of the cliff, 
 and let each other down, in the manner shown in the cut, 
 while the sea is tossing at a giddy depth below, and he is 
 dangling in mid air, with the frightened birds screaming 
 around the intruder. The eggs and flesh of the birds serve 
 them for food ; the feathers are sold, and some especially 
 the small, downy feathers from the breast of the eider-duck 
 are in great request and obtain high prices. 
 


THE LAND'S END, AND THE CORNISH WRECKERS. 
 
 " Where England, stretch'd towards the setting sun, 
 Narrow and long, o'erlooks the western wave." 
 
 CORNWALL is the most western county of England, and 
 at the extreme point of Cornwall, " stretched," as the poet 
 says, " towards the setting sun," is the long, rocky promon- 
 tory, known as the Land's End. Here the billows of the 
 Atlantic, rolling over an abyss, unchecked by rock or shoal, 
 for three thousand miles, first meet a barrier, against which 
 they dash tumultuously ; whilst their spray, borne on the 
 wings of the swift western gale, flies far inland, covering 
 all things with its salt rime. The cliffs at the Land's 
 End, like those at Staffa and the Giant's Causeway, 
 abound, though not to the same extent or perfection, with 
 basaltic columns, which are about sixty feet in height. 
 On the Long Ships' Rocks, about a mile from the main- 
 land, is erected a lighthouse, with a fixed light, which is 
 elevated about ninety feet above high-water mark, and 
 gives friendly warning to vessels sailing along these dan- 
 
108 THE LAND'S END, 
 
 gerous coasts. The people of Cornwall had once a most 
 unenviable reputation for their barbarous inhospitality 
 towards those who were so unfortunate as to be wrecked 
 on their shores. Strange as it may seem, the cry of " A 
 wreck ! a wreck !" was hailed with joy by all, from the 
 highest to the lowest, who flocked to the beach at the 
 welcome news, and plundered, without the least regard to 
 the rights of the shipwrecked, all that was thrown on 
 shore by the waves. This inhospitable robbery was too 
 often accompanied by murder, provoked, perhaps, in some 
 instances, by the expostulations or struggles of the sur- 
 vivors of the ship, to retain what they most reasonably 
 looked upon as their own property. Meanwhile, the 
 Cornish men, calling the wreck " a God-send," looked 
 upon all goods stranded upon their coast as their especial 
 property, bestowed upon them by the direct interposition 
 of Providence, and were ready to resent as an insult any 
 opposition to their claim. Many are the tales told fre- 
 quently mingling the horrible and the ludicrous of scenes 
 at a shipwreck on the coast of Cornwall. Of these, some 
 may have been exaggerated, but they had doubtless some 
 foundation in the general state of public opinion in the 
 country upon this subject. Witness Peter Pindar's story 
 of the minister, who was preaching on the sabbath, when 
 
AND THE CORNISH WRECKERS. 109 
 
 the cry of " A wreck ! a wreck !" was heard without the 
 church. The congregation, as by an uncontrollable im- 
 pulse, rose hastily, and rushed towards the door, to share 
 in the expected spoil. The minister in vain endeavored 
 to restrain them, till, finding all efforts vain, he too yielded 
 to the all-besetting sin, and, in the words of the witty, but 
 irreverend poet, 
 
 " Stop, stop !" cried he, " at least one prayer 
 Let me get down, and all start fair !" 
 
 And yet, on other occasions, the Cornish people were 
 by no means wanting in hospitality to strangers, and the 
 exercise of all the kindly, social virtues. The same men 
 who would appropriate, without regard to the rights or 
 expostulations of the owners, all property strewn upon the 
 beach, would welcome the bewildered traveller to his 
 home at night, bring out his best glass of " yell," give up 
 his own bed to the stranger, and guide him on his way 
 over the moor, with kindly warning of the numerous shafts 
 and pitfalls that beset this land of mines. 
 
 It is to be hoped, however, that the " wreckers of Corn- 
 wall" are a by-gone race that the opprobrium no longer 
 clings to their name. The exertions of the Wesleyan 
 ministers, and the diffusion of education and habits of 
 
110 THE LAND'S END, 
 
 reading, have done much to humanize the Cornish charac- 
 ter ; the peculiar feature of which might, perhaps, be ex- 
 plained, and in part excused, by reference to history. 
 
 In the dark night of ignorance, cruelty, and wrong, 
 which settled over Europe upon the downfall of the Roman 
 empire, trade and commerce were almost annihilated. 
 No longer did the peaceful mariner from Spain or the 
 Mediterranean visit the bays of Cornwall, to exchange the 
 food and clothing of the south for the treasures of the earth 
 tin, and copper, and silver ore. The dreaded sea-kings 
 rode triumphant on every sea, and scourged, with rapine 
 and plunder, all the coasts of Europe. At this period 
 Cornwall was crowded with descendants of the ancient 
 Britons, who, after long and obstinate contests, were 
 driven, by the successive hordes of the conquering Saxons, 
 from the eastern and central portions of the island, and 
 found refuge in the fastnesses of Wales, Cumberland, and 
 Cornwall. The Saxons, and their kindred successors, the 
 Danes, were accustomed, in their slight galleys, to sail up 
 the creeks and rivers ; and when the force opposed to 
 their inroad, or the uninviting aspect of the country, 
 forbade a permanent settlement, they ravaged the district 
 with fire and sword, and regained their ships, laden with 
 all the spoil they could carry away. The Celts of Corn- 
 
AND THE CORNISH WRECKERS. t 111 
 
 wall, cooped up in their narrow boundaries, which, at the 
 same time, concentrated their forces, and enabled them, 
 like their Welch brethren, to retain their distinct national 
 existence as Britons throughout the times of Saxon rule, 
 soon had too good cause to look upon every sea-borne 
 vessel as a cruel enemy, whose approach was to be 
 opposed, and whose destruction was to be sought by all 
 good patriots ; and if, by any chance, one of the Saxon 
 or Danish galleys was wrecked on their coast, it was 
 naturally looked upon as but a righteous retribution for 
 the oppressions they and their brethren had endured, and 
 its plunder as but a slight return for treasures they them- 
 selves had been despoiled of. And for ages after circum- 
 stances had changed, and when a happier era began 
 to dawn, a blind and cruel selfishness, choking all the 
 kinder, gentler feelings, kept alive in this remote corner 
 of our isle a practice which originated in national hostili- 
 ty ; and that which began in the resistance of a people to 
 oppression and a reprisal for outrage, degenerated into 
 private and indiscriminate plunder, too often aggravated 
 by cold-blooded treachery and murder ; making our west- 
 ern shores a by- word and an opprobium to all the world. 
 
 And, as if it were not enough to rob the poor mariner, 
 whom the winds and waves have thrown upon their shores, 
 
112 THE LAND'S END, 
 
 there were to be found in Cornwall wretches base enough 
 to mislead, by false signal-lights, vessels that approached 
 the coast by night, and lure them, and all their crew, upon 
 the rocks. 
 
 Long ago I heard a Cornish tale, which, once heard, 
 is not easily forgotten. After a sultry autumn day, the 
 blood-red sun sunk beneath a sea of crimson, which gradu- 
 ally deepened into molten lead ; and, as the daylight 
 faded, a dark bank of clouds rose in the west, and blotted 
 out star after star, almost ere it had twinkled through the 
 twilight. An old man, whose dwelling was on the sea- 
 shore, beneath the cliffs, looked out upon the darkening 
 face of the sea, with an eager, anxious glance, that swept 
 the horizon. There had not been a breath of air stirring 
 all day ; but now, low meanings foretold a rising gale, 
 and the lightning, distant as yet, and voiceless, glim- 
 mered through the dark caverns of thick cloud, which 
 overspread the sky, and deepened, by momentary con- 
 trast, the solemn blackness of the night. Far seaward, 
 a faint strip of dull red sky in the horizon revealed the 
 tall masts of a gallant ship, which had been all day slowly 
 working her tedious way up the Channel on her homeward 
 course. The old man had watched her for many hours 
 before sunset, and he chuckled as he saw, ere the last dim 
 

AND THE CORNISH WRECKERS. 113 
 
 line of western light had faded, that she was gradually 
 nearing the coast ; and he noticed, with horrid glee, the 
 threatenings of the coming storm. He called to his old 
 wife for his lantern, went to a crazy and ruinous shed, and 
 led out a half-starved horse, which he led by the halter 
 along the beach. At a ravine in the cliffs he turned with 
 his horse, and began to ascend a winding and dangerous 
 path to the top of the precipice. There he lighted his lan- 
 tern and fastened it to the horse's head, and then, for 
 three or four hours of the night, he led the unconscious 
 animal backward and forward along the edge of the 
 cliffs. By this time the lightning flashed frequent and 
 fierce ; the thunder rolled and rattled directly overhead ; 
 the rain poured down like a flood ; and the sea, which all 
 day had heaved sluggishly, and heavily broke upon the 
 rocks, was now roused into fury by the rising gale which 
 swept along its bosom. Still the old man pursued his 
 walk along the cliffs, and ever and anon looked keenly 
 and anxiously through the darkness upon the now raging 
 sea beneath. Hark ! surely that thunder came not from 
 the clouds that flash was no lightning's stroke. It is 
 yes it is the cannon of the fated ship, the well-known 
 signal of distress ; and the old man's fiendish nature re- 
 joiced at the thought that his decoy-light had answered 
 
 8 
 
114 THE LAND'S END, 
 
 its object. Again and again that sound boomed along 
 the waters ; for all too late the mariners discover that 
 they are embayed ; that rocks and breakers are round 
 them, and the gale is driving them quickly to the shore ; 
 that the false light, which had appeared to them as 
 that of a tall ship tossing on the sea, was displayed 
 to lure them to destruction. Again and again the gun is 
 fired, and still the old man rejoices in the success of his 
 horrid stratagem, and calculates, with horrid accuracy, 
 the spot and the moment for the fated vessel striking 
 on the rocks. As the time approaches, he descends the 
 cliffs, and takes his station on the beach to watch for 
 whatever the raging waves may cast on shore. And soon 
 there is heard a crash, louder than the strife of elements 
 a shriek, far above the roar of waters but still the 
 wrecker shrinks not from the horrors of his own dark 
 deed, yet shrouded by the tempest and the night. Day 
 dawns at length, and shows to his greedy eyes the beach 
 strewn with fragments of the wreck, which the yet heaving 
 billows are still bearing shoreward and dashing on the 
 rocks. Presently, the old man is bending over the body 
 of a drowned man ; for his avaricious glance has detected 
 on the finger of the dead a gold ring, with a bright gem 
 glittering in the early dawn. Hastily and eagerly the 
 
AND THE CORNISH WRECKERS. 115 
 
 hardened plunderer drags away the ring from the un- 
 resisting hand, and, by the act, the face of the dead man 
 is turned upward and meets the eye of his murderer. 
 In that moment's glance, horror and despair have taken 
 the place of greedy joy the color forsakes his quivering 
 lip the dearly-purchased gem drops from his unconscious 
 grasp, and, as he sinks to the earth beside the corpse, he 
 gasps out " My son ! my son !" 
 
 It was too true. The old man's only son had left his 
 home in early youth, disgusted with the vices that dis- 
 graced his home ; and with hardly-earned riches and 
 honors, which he fondly anticipated might be the means 
 of rescuing his parent from the course of guilt and 
 depravity in which he had grown gray, he was returning 
 to his native land to perish thus ! Ill-fated son of a yet 
 more wretched sire the murderer and the plunderer of his 
 only child ! 
 
 Seek not to lift the veil that covers the horrors of his 
 late remorse, but rejoice in the belief that the Cornish 
 wrecker is the creature of a by-gone age. 
 
PEEPS THROUGH THE MICROSCOPE. 
 
 WHEN contemplating the magnitude and distances of 
 the heavenly bodies, we are overwhelmed with astonish- 
 ment and awe ; and, as we turn away from the glories 
 revealed to us by the telescope, we are ready to sink into 
 dust at the comparison of our own utter insignificance. 
 " Surely," we say, " such pigmy insects as we are can 
 never occupy a moment's care from that awful Being who 
 has framed the boundless wonders of the heavens who 
 has scattered, like gold-dust, throughout the immeasurable 
 depths of space, worlds upon worlds, compared to the 
 least of which our earth, with all its inhabitants, its 
 " everlasting hills," its rivers and its seas, is but a speck 
 in creation. Surely, we are tempted to say, the very ex- 
 istence of such a mere atom as man must be forgotten by 
 Him whom the very heaven of heavens cannot contain. 
 We think only of the greatness of His power : we forget 
 the greatness of His goodness we forget, perhaps, that 
 weak and insignificant as we are, there are myriads of 
 
DROP OF WATER MAGNIFIED. 
 
PEEPS THROUGH THE MICROSCOPE. 117 
 
 living creatures swarming around us, each one framed 
 with the nicest skill each endowed with capacities of 
 enjoyment each having some service to perform in 
 creation whose very existence was unknown to us, until 
 the microscope gave to the human eye some ten thousand 
 times the power of vision it possessed before. By its 
 means we find fresh proofs of that which the Book of In- 
 spiration has already taught proofs that the same Divine 
 power, wisdom, and benevolence which bade to roll in 
 glory and brightness, through myriads of ages, suns 
 mightier far than that which illumines our sky, disdains 
 not to contrive and to provide for the pleasures of the 
 smallest insect that sports for an hour in the summer's 
 light, and then dies. 
 
 " Will He not care for you, ye faithless ? Say, 
 Is He unwise, or are we less than they ?" 
 
 Yes, every tiny leaf, every drop of water, is a world 
 in which multitudes of God's creatures are born, with 
 frames of workmanship as curious and as wondrous as 
 ours ; and there they live and sport with evident enjoyment 
 throughout their little day, fulfil the end of their tiny 
 being, and then give way to new generations. Look at 
 this cut ! it represents a single drop of water, such a 
 
118 PEEPS THROUGH THE MICROSCOPE. 
 
 drop as may be hung trembling upon a pin's point ay, 
 one that, as it glitters in the light, seems to the naked 
 eye pure and free from any mixture of substance in its 
 clear fluid ; and yet it swarms with life in many forms. 
 Looking through a powerful microscope at that tiny drop, 
 we may see creatures of shapes like those depicted there, 
 and many more besides ; but all endowed with power of 
 motion evidently voluntary, either in frolic gambol, or in 
 search of food. As we watch their movements, fresh 
 forms appear and disappear to make way for new gener- 
 ations, which quickly perish in their turn. Even for 
 the pleasures and the needs of beings such as these, whose 
 universe is a drop of water, God provides ; and shall He 
 not care for us ? 
 
 The microscope strikingly exhibits the superiority of 
 the works of nature over those of art. Examined through 
 its magic lens, the finest, the most delicate engraving 
 looks coarse and harsh lines meant to be smooth and 
 accurate, appear rugged and distorted its most carefully 
 measured spaces are found to be grossly incorrect and 
 unequal the finest needle that man can make appears 
 as rough and pointless as the kitchen poker the most 
 delicate tissue of silk or lace presents the appearance of an 
 irregular and confused assemblage of rough hempen cables. 
 
PEEPS THROUGH THE MICROSCOPE. 119 
 
 On the other hand, examine the leaf of a tree ; every 
 line is true and perfect ; the net- work that forms its 
 frame shows that the intention of the Artificer is fully 
 carried out, in reality as well as in appearance ; the sting 
 of a wasp appears through the microscope, as to the 
 naked eye, a smooth shaft, polished and pointed with the 
 nicest accuracy ; the gossamer thread that floats on the 
 breeze proves to be an assemblage of the finest lines, each 
 individual of which is as fine and smooth in the micro- 
 scope that magnifies a thousand times, as to the imper- 
 fections of our natural vision appears the cluster formed 
 by their union. 
 
 The hair of our heads 
 is found to be a tube 
 growing from a bulbous 
 root sunk into the skin, 
 and deriving its nourish- 
 ment from the body, just 
 as vegetable bulbs do theirs 
 from the earth. In fact, 
 the hair appears to have a principle of life independent, 
 in some degree, of the rest of the frame, as if it were 
 a vegetable rather than an animal substance ; for there 
 are well authenticated instances of the hair of the head 
 
120 PEEPS THROUGH THE MICROSCOPE. 
 
 and the beard growing to considerable length after 
 death. 
 
 The whiskers of a lion, 
 as well as those of the cat 
 tribe in general, have an 
 office distinct from that of 
 ordinary hair in general. 
 Those animals creep stealth- 
 Whiskers of a lion. ily on their prey in the dark, 
 frequently amid many obstructions, from the crockery- 
 crowded shelves where puss steals along after mice, 
 to the tangled jungle of an African or Asiatic forest, 
 where the lion or the tiger crouches in preparation 
 for the deadly spring. The long, stiff whiskers spring 
 outward from the muzzle, and their terminations, form- 
 ing an- irregular circle at least equal to the space 
 occupied by the body of the animal, come in con- 
 tact with any object in the neighborhood, and give warn- 
 ing to the creature to avoid, by any noise, alarming 
 the prey of which it is in pursuit. They are, in fact, 
 feelers with a high degree of sensibility, being inserted 
 into the skin, not by a broad bulb, but by a stifFer and 
 sharper root, so as to press more decidedly upon the 
 nerves, and give the animals speedy and accurate intel- 
 
PEEPS THROUGH THE MICROSCOPE. 121 
 
 ligence of its approach to any object, and its shape and 
 direction. 
 
 The bristles of a hog have 
 their origin in a sheath rising 
 from a small papilla. This 
 papilla is full of an oily se- 
 cretion, and it is this which, 
 by keeping the skin, when 
 Bristles of a Hog. prepared after the animal's 
 
 death, soft and lissom and impervious to moisture, makes 
 a pig's skin so well adapted for saddles. 
 
 The skin of a negro seems 
 admirably fitted for the burn- 
 ing climate he inhabits. It is 
 very smooth, and feels always 
 much cooler than that of a 
 white man under the same 
 skin of a Negro. circumstances. This appears 
 
 due to the minute vessels which pervade it, and which, by 
 the dark fluid they contain, give to the negro his distin- 
 guishing color. The freckles caused in persons of very 
 fair complexion by exposure to the sun, and the tan or sun- 
 burn in those of a darker hue, arise from the same cause 
 as the dark color of the negro, only of course in a much 
 
122 PEEPS THROUGH THE MICROSCOPE. 
 
 less degree. The action of the sun's heat appears to stim- 
 ulate the net- work of small vessels that pervade the skin, 
 thus causing them to discharge an increased secretion of 
 carbon. 
 
 Dr. Carpenter says, " In most parts of the human skin 
 which are liable to rub against each other, we find a con- 
 siderable number of sebaceous follicles, which secrete a 
 fatty substance, that keeps the skin soft and smooth. 
 These are abundant on the most exposed parts of the face, 
 and their secretion prevents the skin from drying up and 
 cracking, which it would be liable to do under the influ- 
 ence of sun and air. They are more numerous in the 
 skins of negroes, producing in them the oily sleekness for 
 which they are generally remarkable, and which prevents 
 their skins from suffering by exposure to a tropical sun. 
 It has been lately discovered, that even in persons of 
 cleanly habits, each of these follicles is the residence of a 
 minute insect, closely resembling the cheese-mite." 
 
 The skin of the camel and that of the porpoise, are 
 widely different in character, but each adapted for the 
 circumstances and situation of the animal which it covers. 
 
 The porpoise, like the whale, being a warm-blooded 
 animal, and frequenting the seas of different and changing 
 climates, requires complete protection from the great and 
 
PEEPS THROUGH THE MICROSCOPE. 
 
 123 
 
 rapid changes of temperature to which it is exposed. It 
 is evident that a covering of fur or hair, the usual means 
 of protection from cold bestowed upon land animals, would 
 greatly impede the progress of creatures intended, like the 
 whale, the dolphin, and the porpoise, to move rapidly 
 through such a resisting medium as water. The two ob- 
 jects, protection from alternations of heat and cold on the 
 one hand, and on the other, a smooth unctuous surface, 
 from which the water may glide without being absorbed 
 or attracted, are both attained by the adoption of a smooth 
 skin lined with a thick coating of fat, which prevents the 
 animal heat necessary to the constitution of the creature 
 being too rapidly lowered by the conducting power of the 
 surrounding water. 
 
 Skin of the Porpoise. 
 
 Skin o f the Camel. 
 
 Contrasted with this, the camel is destined to inhabit 
 the dry hot countries of Eastern and Central Asia, and to 
 traverse deserts whose light sands are frequently whirled 
 
124 
 
 PEEPS THROUGH THE MICROSCOPE. 
 
 Feathers of the 
 
 and driven in a stifling cloud which penetrates every ob- 
 ject it meets. As a protection from this, the camel's skin 
 is hard and tough, covered with a few thin scattered hairs, 
 except in particular places, where it grows in tufts ; and in 
 those parts of the body and limbs which support the animal 
 when it kneels or lies down, the skin is thickened into cal- 
 losities that resist the weight that presses upon them. 
 
 These feathers are 
 represented, not as mi- 
 croscopic objects, but 
 as they appear to the 
 naked eye. They are 
 admirable examples of 
 their class, and well ex- 
 hibit the difference be- 
 tween a wing and a 
 tail-feather. The owl 
 is well known to be a 
 bird of prey which seeks 
 its food, small birds, 
 mice, rats, and reptiles, 
 by night. It skims owl. 
 
 along the hedge-rows and by the farm buildings so noise- 
 lessly, that the timid little creatures it seeks are not aware 
 
 Peacock. 
 
PEEPS THROUGH THE MICROSCOPE. 125 
 
 of its presence till it pounces upon them. This smooth, 
 noiseless flight, so different from the loud flapping of wings 
 caused by birds of other habits and pursuits, (rooks and 
 pigeons, for instance,) is obtained by the peculiar formation 
 of its pinions. The quills are covered beneath with a fine 
 down, which prevents their rattling one upon another in 
 the motion of flying, and the plumage lining each side of 
 every quill is also edged with a smooth down, which dead- 
 ens the vibration of the air under the stroke of the owl's 
 wing. 
 
 The pinion feathers of most birds are enabled to pre- 
 serve their broad van-like form, in spite of the resistance 
 of the air during the rapid and powerful action of the bird 
 in flying, by means of an edging, both serrated (or saw- 
 like) and hooked, by which each separate filament which 
 forms the van of the feather is locked into the one on each 
 side of it. Any one may see an example of it by ex- 
 amining the feather of a common goose-quill. The tail 
 feathers of the peacock, which are not used by the bird in 
 flying, do not require this serrated edging, but hang loosely 
 and gracefully from each other, until meeting at the " eye," 
 they there form the smooth, glossy assemblage of brilliant 
 colors for which the peacock is so conspicuous and so well 
 known. 
 
THE AFRICAN KING. 
 
 WHATEVER authority this king may have over his people 
 certainly does not appear to be derived from the splendor 
 of his apparel. Crown he has none, save the one tuft of 
 hair left upon his else bare scalp ; the spear on which he 
 leans is his only sceptre, and one cannot imagine a sover- 
 eign with bare legs and naked feet bestowing upon any 
 of his subjects the insignia of the order of the garter. 
 Nevertheless he may be every inch a king, and as such he 
 may be introduced to the reader. This is Moselekatse, 
 King of the Amazooloo, and first made known to English- 
 men by Captain Harris, in a most interesting book of 
 Travels in Southern Africa. 
 
 Moselekatse possessed a fine, tall, well-proportioned 
 figure, with rather a pleasing countenance, although 
 marked with wily cunning and suspicion ; with a small 
 piercing eye, surmounted by an ample forehead. He 
 certainly looks like one whose courage and energy mark 
 him out as a king among the men of a wild and savage 
 
AFRICAN KINO. 
 
 . 
 
THE AFRICAN KING. 127 
 
 race ; prompt, stern, and unyielding, his orders are such 
 as ensure swift obedience ; cautious and slow in speech, 
 but rapid and fiery in action ; reserved in manner and 
 dignified in aspect. Such are the men who, in the early 
 and ruder stages of society, place themselves at the head 
 of their people, and by their rugged virtues, and even by 
 the peculiar character of their vices, help forward that 
 onward movement of the human race, which, in spite of 
 many checks and hinderances, of many temporary and 
 partial backslidings, is yet real all the world over. To 
 use Macaulay's noble image, " the tide of civilization is 
 advancing, though each single wave may retreat as it 
 breaks upon the shore." But to return to Moselekatse. 
 His costume is a simple girdle, made of leopards' tails, 
 dangling before and behind ; a few beads round his neck 
 complete his toilet. Captain Harris presented the king 
 with a duffel greatcoat, a coil of brass wire, a mirror, 
 two pounds of " Irish blackguard" snuff, and fifty pounds 
 weight of blood- red beads. " Hitherto the king had con- 
 sidered it beneath his dignity to evince the slightest symp- 
 tom of astonishment. His manner had been particularly 
 guarded and sedate, nor had it been possible to read in 
 his countenance aught that was passing in his bosom ; 
 but the sight of so many fine things at once threw his 
 
128 THE AFRICAN KING. 
 
 decorum off the balance, and caused him for a moment 
 to forget what he owed to himself in the presence of so 
 large an assembly. Putting his thumb between his teeth, 
 and opening his eyes to their utmost limits, he grinned 
 like a school-boy at the sight of gingerbread, and ex- 
 claimed repeatedly, ' Monante, monante, monante : tanta, 
 tanta, tanta !' (Good, good, good ; bravo, bravo, bra- 
 vo !) 
 
 " He now rose abruptly, big with some great conception, 
 and made signs to the parsee to approach and assist him 
 on with the coat, habited in which he strutted several 
 times up and down, viewing his grotesque figure in the 
 glass with evident self-applause. He then desired Mo- 
 hanycour to put it on and turn about, that he might see 
 if it fitted behind : and this knotty point settled to his un- 
 qualified satisfaction, he suddenly cast off his leopards' 
 tails, and commanded all hands to assist in the difficult 
 task of shaking him into tartan trousers. It was indeed 
 no easy work to perform ; but once accomplished, his ma- 
 jesty cut a noble figure. The parsee wore a pair of red 
 silk braces which he presently demanded, observing that 
 they would supply the place of those which Mrs. Moffatt 
 had forgotten to send. Shortly after this he directed an 
 attendant, who was crouching at his feet, to take every 
 
THE AFRICAN KING. 129 
 
 thing to his kraal, and resuming his solemnity and his 
 seat, tea was brought in." 
 
 Thus far Captain Harris ; and yet this man, at whose 
 simplicity and ignorance our very children might laugh, 
 has authority greater than that of any European despot. 
 He alone in his kingdom is rich ; his subjects are all equal- 
 ly poor ; the whole wealth of the state centres in him ; 
 he has the power of life and death ; and all that his peo- 
 ple have to do is to submit to his decrees. 
 
 It is well for the sovereign, and well also for the sub- 
 jects, when by a nation's advancement in civilization its 
 rulers need no longer be exposed to the temptations and 
 responsibilities of unlimited power when the well-being 
 of society depends less upon the character and energy of 
 an individual ruler, than upon the general advancement 
 
 of his people in virtue and knowledge. 
 
 9 
 
COMPARATIVE SIZE AND FORMATION OF ANIMALS. 
 
 FROM among the endless variety of species in the animal 
 kingdom, this sketch selects a few of the most familiar, 
 and groups them together in order to exhibit their com- 
 parative sizes ; and of this comparison a clearer idea may 
 be gained from this slight illustration, than from any 
 verbal description, however elaborate. Let us, however, 
 not limit ourselves to the mere comparison of size, but 
 look a little further, and take notice of some other points 
 of resemblance or of contrast in the specimens of animated 
 nature here exhibited. 
 
 Of all these animals, differing as they do in size and 
 shape, the internal structure is, in one respect, similar. 
 They all have a spine, or back-bone, or rather a series of 
 bones, fitting one upon another, and termed vertebrce, and 
 thus all these are classed as vertebrated animals. This 
 spine acts not only as a support, or fulcrum, for the whole 
 animal frame, but also as a tube for the protection of the 
 spinal cord from its origin at the base of the brain to its 
 extremity. 
 


COMPARATIVE SIZE, &c., OF ANIMALS. 131 
 
 Those animals which have no vertebrae are termed " in- 
 vertebrata," such as the common earth-worm, the crab, 
 the lobster, the oyster, and insects generally. 
 
 In the next place, all these animals, from the ox to the 
 walrus, have four feet, and are hence termed quadrupeds, 
 (from the Latin quatuor, four, and pedes, feet.) The four 
 next have no feet, but move through the water in which 
 they live, by the aid of their fins and tail ; and in this 
 particular, the walrus forms a link between fishes and 
 quadrupeds, his fore feet being very little more than fins. 
 Man (whose pigmy dimensions are well contrasted with 
 those of the huge whale) is termed a biped, (from bis, 
 twice, and pedes, feet,) and, in this respect, birds are the 
 only other animals that are classed with him. It is true 
 that -monkeys, apes, and baboons, use their fore paws as 
 man does his hands, and occasionally stand nearly erect, 
 but they do not naturally or generally walk as man does, 
 on two feet only, any more than man (as he can if he 
 chooses) upon all fours. On the other hand, man is also 
 classed as bimana, or two-handed, and monkeys, apes, &c., 
 as quadrumana, or four-handed ; the hand being distin- 
 guished from the foot by possessing a thumb, which can 
 meet or oppose the other fingers or toes, and thus enable 
 its possessor to lay hold or nip. This last distinction being 
 
132 COMPARATIVE SIZE 
 
 clearer and more explanatory than the old one of biped 
 and quadruped, is now generally adopted in works of 
 natural history. 
 
 Animals are further classed under terms which point 
 out the kind of food on which they live. Those which are 
 supported by vegetable food are termed granivorous, (from 
 granum, grain, and voro, devour ;) those which devour 
 the flesh of other animals are termed carnivorous, (from 
 carnis and voro ; man who eats both is termed omnivorous, 
 (from omnis, all, and voro.) Now, if we examine the struc- 
 ture of carnivorous animals, we shall find them provided 
 with claws and sharp-pointed teeth, to enable them to 
 seize and tear their prey ; but even here there are differ- 
 ences. For instance, the lion, leopard, and other animals 
 of the cat tribe, which lie in wait for their prey, and spring 
 on it at a bound, have their claws very much hooked, 
 so as to take firm hold of their prey at the moment 
 of seizure during its first violent struggles to escape ; 
 and they are at the same time retractile, or capable of 
 being drawn back into the foot as into a sheath. The sole 
 of the foot is also padded with an elastic substance, which 
 both enables the animal to creep noiselessly up to its 
 prey, gives elasticity to its long bounds, and breaks the 
 jar of its fall. Examine the foot of a domestic cat, and 
 
AND FORMATION OF ANIMALS. 133 
 
 you may at once understand how beautifully it is adapted 
 for its natural mode of acquiring food. When puss is undis- 
 turbed and unexcited, as she lies before the fire, her velvet 
 paw, with gentle pat, presents no sharp talons to the well- 
 known hand that caresses her ; but if some mischievous 
 boy comes near to seize her, she begins to lash her sides 
 with her tail, and the sharp, hooked claws, by muscular 
 contraction acting in the manner of a hinge, are thrown 
 forward, and, quick as thought, punish the offender with 
 many a scratch. 
 
 Animals of the dog-species, such as the wolf, the hyaena, 
 and the fox, have not the retractile claws of the cat tribe, 
 and they are less acute, much less curved, and fixed firmly 
 to the toes. These animals catch their prey, not by lying 
 in wait and seizing it at a bound, but by running it down, 
 frequently in packs ; and when, either by superior speed 
 or endurance, they have overtaken it, they seize it with 
 their teeth. Most animals of this tribe have remarkable 
 strength of jaw, which enables them to gripe firmly in 
 spite of the struggles of their prey to escape. The tena- 
 city of the bull-dog is a familiar instance, and the wolf and 
 the hyaena have yet greater power. For this purpose, the 
 bones, which form the jaw, are locked together very se- 
 curely, by prominent projections and deep indentations to 
 
134 COMPARATIVE SIZE 
 
 correspond, by which the powerful muscles which act 
 upon them have great purchase. So much for carnivorous 
 animals. 
 
 Now, if we examine those which are herbivorous or 
 granivorous, we shall generally find the feet, instead of 
 being furnished with claws, covered with a horny sub- 
 stance. This, in the horse, the ass, and others of the same 
 tribe, forms one entire circular hoof; in the ox, the deer, 
 the camel, and the goat, it is divided into two, and in the 
 elephant and rhinoceros into four toes. The teeth, instead 
 of being formed principally for seizing and tearing their 
 food, are rather adapted for grinding it ; and the hinge of 
 the jaw, instead of being firmly locked, so as to allow of 
 very little motion, but one directly up and down, has more 
 play, so as to allow of a sideway motion, which enables 
 the broad surfaces of the grinding teeth to pass over each 
 other, like millstones, (hence their name molares,) and thus 
 to crush the food between them. 
 
 In short, so beautifully adapted to each other are the 
 different parts of the animal frame in every species and in 
 each individual, that a skilful comparative anatomist, who 
 has closely and accurately observed, can frequently tell, 
 from the examination of a single bone of any animal, its 
 general character and habits, and probable formation. 
 
AND FORMATION OF ANIMALS. 135 
 
 The celebrated Cuvier, who, beyond most naturalists, 
 possessed this power of discrimination, once undertook 
 the examination of a few detached fossil bones of some 
 animal of antediluvian date. They differed from any that 
 had been before discovered, and plainly belonged to no 
 animal now known to exist upon the earth ; but from 
 these few relics, Cuvier, reasoning from analogy, ventured 
 to predict the habits, and character, and general form of 
 the animal. His prediction was remarkably verified by 
 the subsequent discovery of further remains of the animal 
 nearly or quite entire. 
 
 The elephant and the giraffe both feed on the branches 
 of trees the former, which has hardly any perceptible 
 neck, reaches its food by means of its long trunk, which 
 tears off the boughs, and, curling inward, puts them into 
 its mouth. The giraffe attains the same object by its ex- 
 traordinary length of neck. 
 
 The rhinoceros, which feeds principally by the banks 
 of rivers, has a flexible upper lip, not prolonged into 
 a trunk, like that of the elephant, but still with consider- 
 able power of extension, to enable it to turn round the 
 branches of overhanging trees and the stalks of rushes, 
 and to draw them towards its mouth. The immense 
 weight of the elephant and rhinoceros would crush the 
 
136 COMPARATIVE SIZE 
 
 horny substance of a hoof formed like that of a horse 
 to rest upon the ground : in those animals, therefore, the 
 foot rests upon a broad pad or cushion, which slightly 
 raises the horny substance of the toes from the ground, 
 and the bones of the leg are of great size and strength, 
 proportionate to the huge bulk which presses upon 
 them. 
 
 There are some striking points of contrast between the 
 habits and formation of the whale and those of the shark. 
 
 The shark, fierce and voracious, and thirsty of blood 
 the very tiger of the ocean is armed with a triple row of 
 sharply pointed teeth ; eagerly devours whatever animal 
 substance comes in its way ; preys as greedily upon the 
 wounded of its own species as upon the flesh of other fish 
 or of mankind ; or of the salt pork or beef with which the 
 sailor (ever at fierce warfare with the shark) baits his 
 hook. 
 
 On the other hand, the Greenland whale, of far greater 
 size, and with proportionate strength, is harmless and in- 
 offensive in its general habits. It has no teeth, but from 
 its palate hangs down a fibrous frame-work or sieve, which 
 consists of what is rather improperly termed " whalebone" 
 The water is drawn in enormous quantities into the huge 
 animal's vast cavern-like mouth, as he glides through the 
 
. AND FORMATION OF ANIMALS. 137 
 
 water in search of food ; and in passing through this sieve 
 it is filtered from the quantities of small marine animals 
 which abound in the ocean, and which support the im- 
 mense carcass of the leviathan of the deep. The water, 
 after being thus filtered, is blown upward in jets, through 
 the nostrils, or blow-holes, situated at the top of the head ; 
 and these jets, in calm weather at sea, may be seen and 
 heard for miles, and thus betray the position of the un- 
 conscious animal to its enemies. The tail is the chief 
 organ of locomotion in fishes the fins act principally to 
 balance or guide the body of the animal. Now, most 
 fishes have the tail placed vertically ; but in the whale, 
 and others of its tribe, it has a horizontal position. A 
 little examination will show the reason of this difference. 
 The whale cannot breathe under water, as fishes in general 
 do, but has to rise at certain intervals to the surface to 
 breathe. To accomplish this more rapidly, it must be 
 evident that the downward stroke of the tail, placed hori- 
 zontally, must be most efficient ; and the animal is thus 
 enabled to rise from an immense depth with astonishing 
 rapidity, and with a force which, in spite of its enormous 
 bulk, frequently raises it completely out of the water, and 
 turns it over in the air ; and then, with frolic gambol, the 
 huge carcass plunges, head foremost, into its native ele- 
 
138 COMPARATIVE SIZE, &c., OF ANIMALS. 
 
 ment, which eddies and boils around it, and resounds, like 
 thunder, to the strokes of its gigantic tail vividly recalling 
 to the astonished beholder the appropriate description of 
 Scripture, " There is that leviathan, whom thou hast made 
 to play therein." 
 
 Incomplete and unconnected as are these examples, my 
 limits forbid me to extend them. A volume, instead of a 
 chapter, might be filled with a commentary upon even so 
 slight a sketch as the one before us ; exhibiting, in the 
 clearest characters, evidences of Divine skill and benevo- 
 lence : skill, in the wondrous adaptation of means to 
 ends, and that in endless variety benevolence, which 
 cares for the comfort and enjoyment of every creature, 
 and provides a compensation for every apparent deficiency. 
 If read in a spirit of humility and sincerity, the Book of 
 Nature wonderfully illustrates the Book of Revelation ; 
 and both, even amidst the mists and perplexities which 
 surround us in this state of trial and probation, and suffer 
 us to see but " as through a glass darkly," give to the eye 
 of faith a glimpse of the beauty and glory of the works of 
 God, which, to those who love Him, shall one day be more 
 clearly known. 
 

 
 

THE MANDAN INDIANS. 
 
 MOST of us have read and heard of the Red Indians of 
 North America, and, perhaps, have mentally classed them 
 all as one people, speaking the same language, having the 
 same manners and customs, and of the same race. The 
 fact, however, is, that there are as wide diversities of 
 origin, character, habits, and language, among the native 
 tribes scattered over the North American continent, as 
 among the nations of Europe. 
 
 Our knowledge of the Red Indians has been greatly 
 increased by the labors of George Catlin, who, for eight 
 years, (from 1832 to 1840,) travelled and lived among 
 them : during that time he devoted himself to the task of 
 obtaining every possible information respecting the man- 
 ners and customs of the different tribes. He painted the 
 portraits of many of their principal men and women ; 
 he took sketches of their dresses, their ceremonies, and 
 their sports ; and his book, which is profusely illustrated 
 with outline engravings, taken from his paintings, will 
 remain as a vivid memento of Indian life, when, as it is 
 
140 THE MANDAN INDIANS. 
 
 too probable will soon be the case, the people whose story 
 it records have utterly disappeared from the face of the 
 earth. This has already been the case with one tribe, in 
 many respects the most remarkable among all that he 
 visited; the wild and gentlemanly Mandans, a view of 
 whose village is prefixed to this chapter. 
 
 At the time when Mr. Catlin visited them, the tribe was 
 located on the west bank of the Missouri river, about 1800 
 miles above St. Louis, one of the most westerly cities of 
 the United States. The Mandans at that time numbered 
 in all about 2,000 souls, who were divided between two 
 villages, situated about two miles apart. 
 
 The lower, or principal town, was situated in one of the 
 most beautiful and pleasing spots that could be found in 
 the world, being in the very midst of an extensive valley, 
 embraced within a thousand swells, and parapets or mounds 
 of interminable green, changing to blue as they vanished 
 in the distance. The ground on which the village stood 
 was a promontory, forty or fifty feet above the bed of the 
 river, which there, suddenly changing its course at a right- 
 angle, protected two sides of the village, which had a most 
 novel appearance to the eye of a stranger. 
 
 The lodges, looking like huge inverted earthen bowls, 
 were closely grouped together, leaving but just room enough 
 
THE M AND AN INDIANS. 141 
 
 for walking and riding between them. On entering, the 
 visitor was surprised to see the neatness, comfort, and size 
 of these dwellings. They were all circular, and from 
 forty to sixty feet in diameter, and were inhabited by from 
 twenty to forty persons a family and all their connections. 
 Their bedsteads, similar in form to ours, and neatly 
 covered with a sacking and hangings of buffalo-skins, were 
 uniformly screened with curtains of buffalo or elk, often 
 beautifully dressed, and tastefully cut into fringe, with 
 handsome ornaments of porcupines' quills, and picture- 
 writings or hieroglyphics. The fire-place was in the 
 centre, immediately under the circular hole at the top of 
 the roof, which answered the double purpose of skylight 
 and chimney ; and suspended from this hole was generally 
 seen the pot or kettle of buffalo-meat, and around it re- 
 clined the family, in the most picturesque attitudes and 
 groups, resting on their buffalo robes and beautiful rush 
 mats. 
 
 The foundations of their lodges were prepared by 
 digging the ground to the depth of two feet, to the re- 
 quired extent, and levelling the excavation. The walls 
 were then formed of strong timbers, of eight or nine inches 
 diameter, firmly fixed in the ground round the sides thus 
 prepared, and a formidable embankment of earth was 
 
142 THE MAN DAN INDIANS. 
 
 raised against them outside. Another series of timbers, 
 springing out at an angle of forty-five degrees from the top 
 of the side- walls, and sending their smaller ends towards the 
 apex, or circular hole before mentioned, formed the roof, 
 which was supported and strengthened by upright pillars, 
 connected by cross-beams. The whole edifice was then 
 covered, to the depth of two or three feet, with earth ; 
 and over all was a plastering of tough clay, impervious to 
 water, and hardened by time and the constant use to 
 which it is subjected : for the roof of each lodge was a 
 lounging-place for the whole family in pleasant weather 
 young and old resorted thither for gossip and mirth, or 
 for solitary gaze and contemplation. 
 
 The earthen floors were so hardened by use, and swept 
 so clean, and tracked by bare and moccasined feet, that 
 they became almost polished, and would scarcely soil the 
 whitest linen. 
 
 It was no uncommon thing to see these lodges fifty feet 
 in diameter inside, with a row of curtained beds extend- 
 ing round their sides, and the space between each bed oc- 
 cupied by a large post, six or seven feet high, on which 
 hung, with wild and startling taste, the arms and armor 
 of the proprietor ; his whitened shield, embossed and em- 
 blazoned his bow and quiver his war-club or battle-axe 
 
THE MANDAN INDIANS. 143 
 
 his spear his tobacco-pouch and pipe his medicine- 
 bag and his head-dress of plumes, taken from the eagle 
 or the raven ; and over all stood forth, in full relief, the 
 fierce-looking head and horns of the buffalo, which was, 
 by a universal regulation among the Mandans, possessed 
 by every man in the tribe, hung at the head of his bed, and 
 used as a mask in the buffalo-dance. This arrangement 
 of beds and arms, combining the most vivid display and 
 arrangement of colors of furs, of trinkets, of barbed and 
 glistening points of steel, of mysteries and hocus pocus, 
 together with the sombre and smoked color of the interior 
 of the lodge, and the wild and rude and red-looking groups 
 that inhabited it surrounded with their household imple- 
 ments, all of their own manufacture, presented altogether 
 one of the most picturesque scenes that could be ima- 
 gined. 
 
 But perhaps the most amusing scene of all, was that 
 which was presented from the top of one of the lodges. 
 Perched there, the observer had the whole village beneath 
 and around him with its sachems, its warriors, its dogs, 
 and its horses in motion its medicines (or mysteries) and 
 scalp-poles, waving overhead its piquets its green fields 
 and prairies, and river in full view the whole forming a 
 panorama of vivid interest. Mr. Catlin says, " There are 
 
144 THE MANDAN INDIANS. 
 
 several hundred houses or dwellings about me, and they 
 are purely unique ; they are all covered with dirt ; the 
 people are all red, and yet distinct from all other red folks 
 I have seen. The horses are wild every dog is a wolf 
 the whole moving mass are strangers to me. The living 
 in every thing, carry an air of untractable wildness about 
 them, and the dead are not buried, but dried upon scaf- 
 folds." For the Mandans never buried their dead, but 
 placed the bodies on light scaffolds, just above the reach 
 of human hands, and out of the way of wolves and dogs, 
 and there they were left to moulder and decay. When- 
 ever a person died, and the customary honors and condo- 
 lence had been paid to the remains, the body was dressed 
 in its best attire, painted, oiled, and supplied with bow and 
 quiver, shield, pipe, and tobacco, knife, flint, and steel, and 
 provisions enough to last him a few days on the journey 
 he is about to perform : a fresh buffalo's skin, taken from 
 the animal when first killed, is wrapped around the body, 
 and tightly bound with thongs of raw hide, from head to 
 foot. Then, other robes are soaked in water till quite 
 soft, and these are also bandaged round the body with 
 great care and exactness, so as entirely to exclude the ac- 
 tion of the air. There is then a separate scaffold erected 
 for it, constructed of four upright posts, a little higher than 
 
THE MANDAN INDIANS. 145 
 
 human hands can reach, and on the tops of these are 
 small poles, passing around from one post to the others, 
 across which a number of willow rods support the body, 
 which is laid upon its back, with its feet carefully pre- 
 sented towards the rising sun. 
 
 A similar practice takes place among the Canadian In- 
 dians ; but the body, besides being carefully bandaged, is 
 placed in a canoe to contain it, and the provisions, arms, 
 and implements which these simple people think neces- 
 sary for the voyage to the other world. 
 
 But to return to the Mandans : Mr. Catlin describes 
 them as a most interesting and pleasing people in their 
 personal appearance and manners, differing, in many re- 
 spects, both in looks and customs, from all other tribes he 
 had seen. They were not a warlike people ; for they 
 seldom, if ever, invaded their enemies' country, but when 
 attacked, they showed valor and courage equal to that of 
 any people on earth. Being a small tribe, and unable to 
 contend on the wide prairies with the Sioux and other 
 roaming tribes, who were ten times as numerous, they 
 very judiciously located themselves in a permanent village, 
 which they strongly fortified. From this cause they had 
 advanced further in the arts of manufacture, and had their 
 lodges more abundantly supplied with the comforts, and 
 
 10 
 
146 THE M AND AN INDIANS. 
 
 even luxuries of life, 'than any other Indian nation. In 
 consequence, they were considerably in advance of other 
 tribes in manners and refinements, and were therefore 
 familiarly and correctly denominated, by traders and 
 others who had visited them, " the polite and friendly 
 Mandans." 
 
 They were also prominently distinguished from other 
 Indian tribes, by having varieties of complexion, instead 
 of the uniform red hue so characteristic of the aborigines 
 of North America, whose hair also is invariably jet-black, 
 and their eyes dark. On the contrary, many of the Man- 
 dans had a light complexion, with hazel-gray or blue eyes, 
 and hair of various shades, one especially, which seems to 
 distinguish them not only from Indian, but from European 
 races in general namely, a bright, silvery gray ; not the 
 hoary head of age, but a color which appears from earliest 
 youth. 
 
 From these and other circumstances, Mr. Catlin was in- 
 duced to believe that the Mandan Indians were a foreign 
 race, introduced into the far West of North America at a 
 comparatively recent period ; and he goes so far as to 
 speculate on the probability of their having been descend- 
 ants of the Welsh colony, which, in the early part of the 
 fourteenth century, sailed from our shores, under Prince 
 
THE MANDAN INDIANS. 147 
 
 Madoc, and, according to tradition, landed in some part of 
 North or South America. 
 
 Remains of villages and fortifications, erected in the 
 manner of those of the Mandans, have been traced up 
 the Mississippi, to its junction with the Ohio and the 
 Missouri along the first of these two rivers to the neigh- 
 borhood of Cincinnati, and in several places on the banks 
 of the Missouri to the spot eighteen hundred miles above 
 St. Louis, (as before stated,) where this interesting tribe 
 became utterly extinct, in consequence of the ravages of 
 the small-pox in 1837 and 1838. Some thirty or forty 
 escaped the disease, and were taken as slaves by the Ric- 
 carees the rest were all swept away. 
 
 One incident in the last days of the Mandan nation is 
 of thrilling interest. Mah-to-toh-pa, the hero of his tribe 
 handsome, hospitable, generous, and brave a noble 
 and a gentle man after recovering from the fell disease 
 himself, watched every member of his family perish be- 
 neath its deadly ravages his wives and all his little ones ; 
 he wandered into the village, and wept to find his 
 friends and his kinsmen no more ; sachems and saga- 
 mores the wise in council and the brave in action were 
 all laid low. He returned to his own abode the abode 
 of death covered the bodies of his family with the 
 
148 THE HAND AN INDIANS. 
 
 funeral robes, wrapped another round himself, and went 
 out upon a hill at a little distance, where he lay, in spite 
 of all the solicitations of the white traders who were 
 there, resolved to starve himself to death. There he re- 
 mained till the sixth day, when he entered the horrid 
 gloom of his own wigwam, and laying his body beside the 
 group of his family, drew his robe over him, and died on 
 the ninth day of his total abstinence. 
 
 So perished Mah-to-toh-pa, a chief endowed with vir- 
 tues which, under the benign and regulating influence of 
 true Christianity, would have made him a blessing and an 
 ornament to any nation upon earth. 
 
 In corroboration of his idea of the Mandans being de- 
 scended from the Welsh, Mr. Catlin gives instances of 
 several elementary words in Mandan and Welsh which 
 are almost identical. The Mandan canoes, also, are alto- 
 gether different from those of other Indians, and exactly 
 resemble the Welsh coracle, being made of raw hides, 
 stretched underneath a frame- work of wood, and shaped 
 nearly round, like a tub. A woman would carry one on 
 her head from her wigwam to the water's edge, and hav- 
 ing stepped into the coracle, stand in front, and propel it 
 by dipping her paddle forward and drawing it to her, in- 
 stead of paddling by the side. 
 

 
 BURIAL CANOF.. XORTH AMF.RICA. 
 
THE M AND AN INDIANS. 149 
 
 The prairies of North America, west of the Mississippi, 
 abound with vast herds of buffaloes, which form almost 
 the entire food of many Indian nations, who have many 
 modes of hunting down these powerful animals. One of 
 the most characteristic is represented in the opposite cut. 
 Besides buffaloes, the prairies abound with wolves ; and 
 of these animals the buffaloes, when herded together, 
 appear to have very little dread, and allow them ^to ap- 
 proach very nearly. The Indian, knowing this fact, covers 
 himself with the skin of a wolf, drawing the head over his 
 own shoulders, and, armed with the short, sinewy bow, 
 and a handful of arrows, crawls towards the herd on his 
 hands and knees, until he approaches within a few rods 
 of the unsuspecting group, and easily shoots down the 
 fattest of the throng. 
 
A WAEBOW VILLAGE-GUIANA. 
 
 IN the northwest of South America, between the great 
 rivers Oronoco and Amazon, is the Warrow country a 
 land, in some respects, similar to that of Ashantee, de- 
 scribed in a previous chapter. The vegetation is equally 
 luxuriant, but the climate is less deadly ; the inhabitants 
 have not the wild and savage energy of the Ashantees, 
 but having all the necessaries of life at hand, without the 
 need of cultivating the soil, they indulge in a luxurious 
 indolence, which is equally unfavorable to their advance- 
 ment in civilization. 
 
 A considerable portion of the country is under water 
 for three-fourths of the year, and from this circumstance 
 the Warrows are almost amphibious. They build their 
 habitations about four feet from the ground, upon the 
 stems of eta- trees, which grow in very thick clusters. 
 Many of these huts are very large, being capable of ac- 
 commodating one hundred and fifty people, who are all 
 slung in hammocks, which serve them both for bed and 
 
A WARROW VILLAGE, GUIANA. 151 
 
 chair, and are, in fact, almost the only furniture they use 
 or require. At night, a fire made close to the hammock, 
 envelops it in smoke, which keeps off the swarms of 
 moschetoes and sand-flies that infest this land of mud, 
 and slime, and water, and overhanging boughs ; and in 
 this cloud the Warrow, from long use, luxuriates where 
 we should be more than half blinded and suffocated. 
 
 The waters flowing beneath and around the floor of 
 their abodes abound with fish, which forms the chief food 
 of the people, almost all of whose industry and ingenuity 
 are displayed in the construction of their canoes, and the 
 singular abodes we have described. 
 
PERILS OF THE DEEP. 
 
 WHEN we see a large ship of war at anchor in the 
 smooth water of a harbor, or river, and gaze upward at 
 the huge hull whose bulging sides, serried with grim can- 
 non, rise like an overhanging mountain above the tiny 
 boat in which we steal timidly beneath her dark shadow, 
 OUT first thought is, that it must be impossible for any waves, 
 however stormy, materially to affect the security and equi- 
 librium of so vast a mass : our second recalls to mind the 
 " ower true tale" of many a vessel as gallant and as ma- 
 jestic, utterly shipwrecked, and bids us shrink at the might 
 of those winds and waves which can toss in wild play and 
 dash to atoms the mightiest work of man, as if it were but 
 a light seaweed on the raging foam. 
 
 There she lies, as if imbedded firmly as a rock, motion- 
 less in the clear fluid which gently heaves and ripples 
 around her : her tall masts, with all their " tracery" of 
 spars and cordage, shooting erect and fair into the sky : 
 and to a landsman it requires an effort of thought to pic- 
 ture that which now appears the very image of magnifi- 
 

 
PERILS OF THE DEEP. 153 
 
 cent repose, of immoveable stability, transformed into a 
 shattered wreck, " driven by the wind and tossed," 
 plunging and heaving, with restless struggling, amidst op- 
 posing billows, the veriest toy for the sport of old ocean, 
 in his wildest freaks. 
 
 " They that go down to the sea in ships, that do busi- 
 ness in great waters, these see the works of the Lord and 
 His wonders in the deep." 
 
 Among the many perils of the sea, one of the most 
 remarkable and uncommon is the subject of the annexed 
 cut % which is intended to represent the Maelstroom, a 
 fearful whirlpool which exists south of the Loffoden Isles, 
 off the rocky and deeply-indented coast of Norway. 
 Various speculations have been entered into as to the 
 cause of this extraordinary whirlpool, and some have 
 gone so far as to account for it by imagining the existence 
 of a vast hollow at the bottom of this part of the ocean, 
 by which the waters of the Northern Ocean have a sub- 
 terranean communication with the Baltic sea on the other 
 side of Norway. Its existence, however, appears to be 
 sufficiently accounted for without resorting to so extraor- 
 dinary a notion as this ; and there is no doubt that the 
 extent and violence of this whirlpool, like those of Scylla 
 and Charybdis in ancient times, have been somewhat ex- 
 
154 PERILS OF THE DEEP. 
 
 aggerated : or rather, perhaps, that to the smaller vessel 
 and less skilful mariners of former ages the danger was 
 much greater than it is to modern navigators. 
 
 The force of the Maelstroom increases and diminishes 
 with the changes of the tides, and the simple fact appears 
 to be, that at this part of the ocean two tides, flowing in 
 different directions, meet twice during the twenty-four 
 hours, and by their meeting, in a part hemmed in as it 
 were by the direction and shape of the islands and main- 
 land of this part of Norway, the waters are whirled round 
 with great rapidity, and, as in all similar circumstances, 
 they are heaped up at the circumference of the whirlpool 
 and depressed into a hollow at its centre, until it really 
 has the appearance of being sucked in, and disappearing 
 through some abyss. 
 
 A somewhat similar effect, but to a much less extent, is 
 produced by the same cause off the Isle of Portland, on 
 the south coast of England. It is there called " the Race 
 of Portland" and vessels guided by inexperienced or un- 
 watchful steersmen may get drawn in and dashed upon 
 the shore, beyond the possibility of escape, by the mere 
 force of the whirling current, caused by one tide rolling up 
 the channel from the Atlantic, meeting another tide rush- 
 ing from the North Sea through the Straits of Dover. 
 
PERILS OF THE DEEP. 155 
 
 Another and a more common peril of the deep, is that 
 arising from rocks wholly or partially covered by the wa- 
 ter. Great care is taken to lay down most accurately the 
 position of such as these in all nautical charts, and equal 
 or still greater care and watchfulness are required by the 
 mariner to ascertain the exact position of his vessel on the 
 trackless ocean, so as to avoid the spot where such rocks 
 lie hid. It has been well said, that the sailor dreads the 
 land more than the sea. When near the shore, although 
 that shore be his country, the home of all he holds dear, 
 the anxious captain paces the deck night after night, con- 
 stantly consults the barometer, takes frequent celestial ob- 
 servations, to ascertain the exact position of his vessel, and 
 dreads above all things a bewildering fog on a lee shore. 
 The same captain, when in the centre of the Atlantic, a 
 thousand miles away from land, can, if his ship be sound 
 and well appointed, sleep soundly at night, amidst the 
 roaring of the wind and the heaving of billows, trusting to 
 the ordinary care of the officers of the night-watch, who 
 pace the deck in turns during the hours of darkness, while 
 the gallant vessel holds on her way above the ocean 
 depths. 
 
 In order to provide for the greater safety of the passen- 
 gers and crew in case of shipwreck, it is now becoming 
 
156 PERILS OF THE DEEP. 
 
 more common to divide the interior of ships into several 
 compartments, each separated by water-tight divisions, so 
 that if from a leak or other cause any one compartment 
 should be filled with water, the buoyancy of the others 
 would be sufficient to keep the ship afloat, and give those 
 who sail in her, time and opportunity to provide for their 
 escape. 
 
 The " Great Britain" iron steam-ship, which has been 
 before alluded to, is thus provided, and the material of 
 which she is built is much better adapted for such a mode 
 of construction than wood, as a degree of strength is ob- 
 tained by iron plates of very moderate thickness, superior 
 to that afforded by massy and cumbersome bulk-heads 
 formed of timber. 
 
 The Great Britain carries out with her four large life- 
 boats of iron and two boats of wood, which are suspended 
 over the sides of the ship, while one large life-boat is on 
 the deck. Four hundred persons can be accommodated 
 in the boats ; to which, however, we may hope they will 
 not have to resort, in consequence of shipwreck. 
 
 A life-boat is kept at most of the principal stations round 
 the British coast, which is in many parts very dangerous 
 to mariners, from the varied dangers of rocks, shoals, 
 tides, and currents. To these very dangers, perhaps, the 
 
PERILS OF THE DEEP. 157 
 
 English sailors owe their superior skill and courage, 
 which give them the pre-eminence in all parts of the 
 world. 
 
 One can hardly mention the life-boat without thinking 
 of Grace Darling, a young woman who with her aged 
 father, the keeper of the Longstone lighthouse, on the 
 coast of Northumberland, saved the surviving crew and 
 passengers of the Forfar steamer, which had struck on the 
 rocks. The sea was raging furiously, but this noble girl, 
 forgetting all fear in her desire to save the lives of her 
 fellow-creatures, braved dangers from which hardy and 
 skilful seamen shrunk, and succeeded in reaching the 
 wreck and rescuing nine of the survivors. Grace Darling's 
 name immediately became the theme of every tongue ; 
 the lone lighthouse, where the shipwrecked had been so 
 hospitably received, became the resort of the noble and 
 the fashionable, and praises, and gifts, and honors, from 
 every quarter, were showered upon the heroine. Under 
 these circumstances, Grace Darling showed a strength of 
 mind and a true greatness of soul, greater even than that 
 which had enabled her to meet the raging of the sea at 
 the call of humanity. Undazzled by the glare of fame, 
 untempted by the offers of emolument, which flowed from 
 every quarter, she lived content in her humble home, ful- 
 
158 PERILS OF THE DEEP. 
 
 filling to the last her daily duties, as cheerfully as if she 
 had never been aught but one of those 
 
 " Of whom fame speaks not with her clarion voice," 
 
 and died in 1842, loved and regretted, as well as honored, 
 at the early age of twenty-seven, the very type of a true- 
 hearted English maiden, gentle and brave. 
 
 


THE RIVER THAMES. 
 
 IN a former portion of this volume the Thames has been 
 alluded to, in contrast with the far mightier rivers of the 
 western hemisphere ; and here we have a view of the 
 bubbling fountain-head which gives birth to the river, 
 whose gentle stream, narrow and insignificant as it may 
 be, compared with others, bears on its smooth surface a 
 richer freightage, and a far more numerous fleet, than any 
 other of the wide world's waters. 
 
 The source of the Thames lies among the Cotswold 
 hills, which run in a direction northeast and southwest 
 through Gloucestershire. These hills rise abruptly from 
 the rich valley of the Severn, in bold ridges, which, in the 
 southern portion of their range, are clothed, from their 
 base to their summit, with overhanging woods of beech, 
 save here and there, where some opening in the woods 
 leaves exposed the limestone cliff, contrasting, by its light 
 hue, with the dark surrounding mass of foliage and boughs. 
 
 Immediately beyond this ridge and the winding valleys, 
 
160 THE RIVER THAMES. 
 
 (each with its clear running stream,) which everywhere 
 deeply indent the range of hills, the country suddenly 
 loses its rich and romantic aspect ; we leave the woods 
 and the deep glens, in the recesses of whose twilight 
 sparkles the merry running water, where the trout leaps 
 and the dragon-fly glances, and emerge upon a high, open 
 table-land, bleak and bare of trees, and divided by rough 
 stone- walls. And in this high table-land, thus rising over 
 the Vale of Severn, is born her sister river, whose winding 
 stream is as gentle and as clear, and as equal in its depth 
 and in its flow, as the other, rushing onward from the 
 lofty mountains of North Wales, is swift and turgid, and 
 abounding with shoals. 
 
 At Lechlade the Thames first becomes navigable for 
 barges, and from this point to London Bridge the dis- 
 tance, following the windings of the river, is nearly one 
 hundred and fifty miles. 
 
 As it flows on towards Oxford, it is augmented by 
 several tributary streams, the principal of which are the 
 Windrush, flowing by Burford and Witney, and the Even- 
 lode, rising near Stow in the Wold. From Oxford, the 
 Thames runs southward by Abingdon and Wallingford 
 till it approaches Reading, where it is joined by the 
 Kennett, and a little further down, by the Loddon. Then, 
 
THE RIVER THAMES. 161 
 
 sweeping northward, and then again eastward and south- 
 ward, in many a bold, winding reach, it passes Henley, Great 
 Mario w, and Maidenhead, between beautifully wooded cliffs, 
 or among rich pastures, until it reflects the royal and ban- 
 nered towers of Windsor, and the classic hall of Eton. 
 Between Staines and Kingston it is joined by the Coin, the 
 Mole, and the Wey, and soon afterwards, at Teddington, 
 (probably a corruption of Tide-end-town,) feels the alter- 
 nate ebb and flow of the ocean tide. From Richmond and 
 Kew, it flows on in a direction nearly due east, until it re- 
 flects the many shadows of the great metropolis ; temple, 
 and tower, and bridge warehouse, and wharf, and pier 
 the busy, restless crowd of vessels, ever shifting and 
 gliding and, over all, the never-ceasing cloud of smoke, 
 which dims the pale blue of our English skies, even on 
 the brightest summer's day. But of London and its 
 wonders we have already spoken, and leaving them be- 
 hind, the river glides onward, past dock-yard and arsenal, 
 the naval hospital, and the far-famed observatory of 
 Greenwich, with the marshes of Essex on its left bank, 
 and on its right, the wooded knolls and pleasant orchards 
 of Kent. There, Tilbury Fort sends us back to the days 
 of Elizabeth and the Spanish Armada, and the great 
 
 names of Burleigh and Walsingham, Drake and Raleigh ; 
 
 11 
 
162 THE RIVER THAMES. 
 
 here, Gravesend, with its crowds of citizens, rejoicing in 
 their temporary exchange of the smoke of rival steamers 
 for that of the Great City, and the bustle and noise of 
 holiday-making for that of business, recalls our thoughts 
 to the present time. A few miles onward, and the river 
 widens into an estuary, which receives the waters of the 
 Medway ; and the united streams, gradually receiving, as 
 their shores recede, the swell of ocean, mingle their waters 
 with his, and take his name. 
 
 Thus Time, as he rolls onward, is lost in the depths 
 of eternity, to which we, like barks upon the river, are 
 ever hastening. Happy they who have committed the 
 guidance of their souls to Him who rules the winds and 
 waves, and who, amidst all the storms and trials of life, 
 can smile and say, 
 
 " My Father's at the helm !" 
 
THE EAGLE. 
 
 IN all ages and in all climes the eagle has been the 
 type of swiftness, and strength, and dominion. The 
 unconquered legions of ancient Rome the victorious 
 hosts of Napoleon the star-spangled banner of Columbia 
 over all these hovers the image of the king of birds ; 
 and with some of these has he become an emblem of 
 power, gained by tyranny and wrong of dominion, upheld 
 by craft and oppression, by cruelty and bloodshed. 
 
 And yet, in truth, he is a noble bird, whose nature and 
 whose pursuits man has libelled and caricatured when he 
 has pretended to emulate them. The eagle, fierce though 
 he be, is not wantonly cruel ; his pounce is, in general, a 
 sudden, untorturing death-stroke, and he slays but to sup- 
 ply food for himself and his nestlings : in his bloodshed he 
 but fulfils the end of his being, acts but in accordance 
 with the constitution of that nature with which his Ma- 
 ker has endowed him ; but man who can say that man 
 does not pervert and outrage his ? 
 
164 THE EAGLE. 
 
 Mudie gives a very animated description of the eagle. 
 " They are," says he, " in all respects the birds of the 
 greatest elevation. They frequent more lonely and se- 
 cluded places they nestle in more elevated, wild, and in- 
 accessible rocks they rise much higher, and range much 
 further, and their stoop, when they come down on their 
 prey from a great elevation, is, perhaps, the grandest dis- 
 play in the whole action of animated nature. Though all 
 birds are formed of nearly the same materials, these seem 
 consolidated, in a peculiar manner, in every part of the 
 eagle. Their bones are more solid, and specifically heavy ; 
 and though, like the bones of all birds, they are hollow, for 
 the free admission of air, they are fortified by cross pieces 
 extending from side to side of the tubes, so as to offer 
 complete resistance to every strain of the naturally violent 
 motions of the birds. Their muscles are as firm as pieces 
 of cable, and their tendons almost as rigid as dried catgut. 
 Their very feathers have a firmness and strength in them 
 that alone would tell the daring and enduring charac- 
 ter of the birds. Those winds which cleave the oak, 
 and rend up the mountain-pine by the roots, do not ruffle 
 the plumage of the mountain-eagle, or drive her from her 
 perch on the edge of the rock. Firmly rooted in the pow- 
 erful clutch of her feet, and defended by the plaited mail 
 
THE EAGLE. 165 
 
 of her stiff, though elastic feathers, she defies the topmost 
 bent of the elements, and from the * munition of rocks' looks 
 down unconcerned upon the tempest which is sweeping 
 the world below her with terror and devastation. The 
 range of her eye is truly wonderful. Floating hundreds 
 of feet above the summits of our highest mountains and 
 she always soars aloft, even there her horizon commands 
 a hundred dells and valleys, and she spies a grouse or a 
 mountain-hare from a distance at which the human eye 
 could hardly discern an elephant. But as she dwells in 
 power, she also dwells in peace. There is no tumult or 
 clamor in the eyry of the eagle ; she merely seeks food 
 for herself and her young, and when that has been ob- 
 tained she is at rest ; and all under her dominion are safe, 
 for even the boldest and swiftest-winged hawks keep 
 at a distance from the retreat of the eagle, and when her 
 shadow passes over the valley, not a wing moves but her 
 own." 
 
 There is great beauty and force in this description, the 
 author of which a Scotchman appears to have watched 
 the birds with the eye of a poet and a naturalist, as they 
 floated over the mountains and glens of his native High- 
 lands. The eagle is now but seldom seen in the southern 
 and more cultivated parts of Britain ; and as population 
 
166 THE EAGLE. 
 
 becomes more dense, and the face of the country better 
 covered in the more remote parts of the island, it is prob- 
 able that the species, like the wolf, the elk, and the beaver, 
 (all in former times natives of our island,) will become 
 extinct. 
 
 I know few things more touching than the expression in 
 the eye of a captive eagle. The plumage, soiled and rum- 
 pled, has none of the rich, brown lustre which the free 
 winds gave the attitude, though still dignified and un- 
 subdued, has lost its exulting fierceness ; but the eye is yet 
 bright ay, very bright, and ^eems, while the gaping 
 crowd that surrounds its miserable cage is utterly un- 
 noticed, to gaze through its prison-bars into the dim dis- 
 tance, far, far away. It is as though the soaring spirit of 
 the bird had wandered forth beyond the prison which for- 
 bade its bodily flight ; and the eye, with proud, yet fond 
 regret, watched it beyond the clouds that surround his na- 
 tive rocks, and sought to forget its captivity. 
 
 Poor bird ! fit emblem no longer of sovereignty and 
 might no longer a leader of bannered hosts, marching 
 forth to the slaughter but rather, true type, in this thy 
 prison, of a yet nobler existence. Thy keen, far-seeing, 
 earth-despising gaze, images the spirit of the Christian, 
 rising beyond the chains and encumbrances of this mortal 
 
THE EAGLE. 167 
 
 state, while " forgetting those things that are behind, it 
 reaches forward unto those that are before ;" and his eye, 
 single and unwavering as thy own, looks beyond the vani- 
 ties that surround him, and with a glance, which, though 
 keen and bright, has lost the original fierceness of its na- 
 ture, gazes upon the realities of the coming eternity. 
 
AUSTRALIA, AND THE KANGAROO. 
 
 THE vast island, or rather continent of Australia, differs 
 from the other portions of the known world in many 
 important particulars in its peculiarities of soil, climate, 
 and geographical features, and in its animal and vegetable 
 productions. 
 
 For instance, its largest rivers, instead of widening and 
 deepening as they flow onward from their source, and 
 pouring a broader stream into the ocean, gradually di- 
 minish after leaving the hill country, and finally disappear, 
 before they reach the coast, in chains of pools and vast 
 tracts of morass, or else diffuse their waters into a broad 
 but shallow lake, which partly evaporates, and partly 
 creeps or soaks into the sea by some narrow and insignifi- 
 cant outlet, choked up with sand. Besides this, many 
 of the Australian rivers, as well as the inland lakes, are 
 as salt as the ocean itself. 
 
 In most other countries we find that well- watered and 
 fertile districts abound in the plains, and that desolation 
 and sterility are associated with high lands, mountains, 
 
KANGAROO. 
 
AUSTRALIA, AND THE KANGAROO. 169 
 
 and rocks. In Australia the reverse of all this holds good. 
 The mountain districts, and the terraces at their feet, by 
 which the traveller sinks into the dead level country, are 
 fertile, well watered, and picturesque, abounding with 
 vegetable productions of a peculiar character, quite dis- 
 tinct from those of our hemisphere, and enlivened by birds 
 of brilliant plumage. 
 
 On the other hand, the plains, which are of immense 
 extent, and with an horizon as unvaried as that of the 
 wide ocean, are, for the most part, alternately arid deserts 
 or impassable swamps, and in either case are dreary and 
 desolate. During the long droughts, which periodically 
 prevail in Australia, they are a dry waste, where "the 
 dust groweth into hardness, and the clods cleave fast to- 
 gether ;" hardly a bird is seen, and the vegetable kingdom 
 is almost annihilated ; the beds of the exhausted rivers 
 are crusted with salt, and on the" dusty banks wither in 
 heaps the parched stems of the dead marsh-plants. 
 
 After the wet season, which follows the years of drought, 
 the same district generally becomes an almost impassable 
 bog, full of water-holes, or else an immense inland sea, in 
 which stand rotting the bare trunks of full-grown trees. 
 A few months afterwards, and this inland sea will probably 
 have become a grassy plain. 
 
170 AUSTRALIA, AND THE KANGAROO. 
 
 Australia, in fact, appears to be really new land not 
 merely new to us, but of much more recent formation 
 than our northern continents, and to be undergoing at 
 this very time a state of transition, in which, by means 
 at first-sight inadequate to work such mighty changes, 
 this country is becoming gradually but surely fitted, more 
 and more, for the abode of man ; and we may anticipate 
 the time when its now barren plains will produce food and 
 sustenance for nations as numerous as those which crowd 
 the most populous districts of Europe or Asia. 
 
 " Known unto God are all His works, from the founda- 
 tion of the world ;" and may not we, his rational creatures, 
 take glimpses of the wonderful working of His creative 
 power, still in active exercise upon the earth ? May we 
 not, without presumption, speculate on the benevolent pro- 
 visions of that all-seeing wisdom, by the operation of 
 which, through ages from the earliest dawn of time until 
 now, this beautiful and glorious earth has been prepared, 
 and is yet preparing, for the reception of His creatures 
 fitted more and more to minister to their production, their 
 sustenance, and their delight ? 
 
 It would appear, then, that at a period comparatively 
 recent, (recent, that is, contrasted with the time when the 
 other continents took their present general aspect,) the 
 
AUSTRALIA, AND THE KANGAROO. 17l 
 
 vast level plains in the interior of Australia have been 
 raised above the surface of the ocean : that its mountains 
 and elevated terraces were then islands, similar in charac- 
 ter to those fair gems of earth which are so profusely scat- 
 tered over the Pacific ; and that its rivers were at that 
 time island mountain torrents, each of which once found a 
 short and rapid passage to the ocean, but which now, 
 when once they have left the falling country, wind their 
 sluggish and uncertain course amidst the dead levels of 
 the newly-raised land, and, as before observed, lose them- 
 selves in pools and marshes. But year by year, and cen- 
 tury after century, these streams are wearing for them- 
 selves a deeper and more continuous channel to the coast, 
 (whose barrier of coral rocks is the wondrous work of 
 myriads of minute sub-marine animals.) And the time 
 may, with great probability, be anticipated, when mighty 
 rivers the Lachlan and the Macquarie, the Darling, the 
 Morrumbidgee, and the Murray, with their numerous trib- 
 utaries, all now detached and broken, will form a mag- 
 nificent assemblage of connected rivers, opening up to the 
 ocean upwards of 4000 miles of inland navigation, in 
 southern and eastern Australia, and watering an extent 
 of country of not less than 40,000 square miles. And, in 
 the mean time, just consider how, by the floods of the wet 
 
172 AUSTRALIA, AND THE KANGAROO. 
 
 years, the land, hitherto a waste, barren as the sea-shore, 
 is becoming covered by the rich alluvial deposits, brought 
 by the floods from the mountain ranges. And again 
 how the very destruction of vegetable life, consequent on 
 the long-continued droughts, provides layers of nutriment 
 for future generations of plants of a superior class, and 
 suitable for the countless flocks and herds which accom- 
 pany man and minister to his wants. 
 
 With one exception, all the trees of Australia are ever- 
 greens, and from the smoked color of their leaves, they 
 give a somewhat gloomy appearance to the scenery of its 
 forests, which, however, are seldom dense assemblages of 
 countless trees, like the primeval woods of our continent 
 and America, but are scattered over the country in distinct 
 clumps and patches, giving a park-like appearance to the 
 landscape. 
 
 Not less peculiar, in formation and character, is the 
 zoology of Australia. With some of its more remarkable 
 animals as the emu among the birds and the kangaroo 
 among the quadrupeds most of my readers will be toler- 
 ably familiar. The emu is the Australian ostrich does 
 not fly, but runs swiftly, and kicks out at its pursuers like 
 a horse, and with almost equal force. 
 
 The kangaroo is the largest native quadruped, and has 
 
AUSTRALIA, AND THE KANGAROO. 173 
 
 been for some years domesticated in English parks and 
 zoological collections. There are three or four varieties 
 of this animal, the largest of which (represented in the 
 cut) is frequently six feet in height, and equal in weight 
 to a calf. Its character is gentle and timid, and, in many 
 respects, resembles that of the deer, but with less intelli- 
 gence. It feeds on all-fours, but at other times stands 
 erect upon its hind legs, and is supported, also by its long 
 and powerful tail. When disturbed or pursued, it darts 
 off in a succession of flying leaps, which give a herd of 
 them a most ludicrous appearance. Its short fore paws 
 are strong, and adapted for digging, and when hard 
 pressed by dog or man, the animal has been known to 
 turn, and with them seize its enemy, and rip him up with 
 one stroke of its powerful hind leg, which is armed with 
 two sharp claws of great size and strength. But the great 
 peculiarity of this, and some other animals of Australia, is 
 the abdominal pouch, to which its young, for some time 
 after they can walk, constantly return on the approach of 
 danger ; and though thus burdened, the female kangaroo 
 will leap away with amazing swiftness. 
 
 Another most singular creature is the ornithoryncus, or 
 duck-billed platypus, an animal which, to the thickly- 
 furred^ody and burrowing habits of the mole, unites the 
 
174 AUSTRALIA, AND THE KANGAROO. 
 
 feet and bill of a duck, and the internal structure of a 
 reptile. It is extremely shy, so that its habits are yet but 
 little known, and naturalists have hardly yet determined 
 whether or not its young are produced from eggs. Had a 
 stuffed specimen of this singular animal been first pro- 
 duced only at the exhibition of some travelling showman 
 of doubtful character, it would probably have been con- 
 sidered as fictitious as the mermaid, so often exhibited, and 
 which was formed of the fore part of a monkey, sewn upon 
 the tail of a shark. 
 
 But my limits are already exceeded ; and here, for this 
 year at least, must end our Glimpses of the Wonderful. 
 The title is a modest one, so also are the claims of the 
 writer to attention, and yet deeply suggestive, and such 
 has been his aim. He has sought rather to excite inquiry 
 than to communicate knowledge. 
 
 Wonders are all around us. In the air we breathe 
 upon the earth we tread ; they glow in the heavens above 
 us they pervade each atom of our bodily frame, so 
 " fearfully and wonderfully made." And if to the immor- 
 tal mind of any young and ardent inquirer, thirsting for 
 knowledge, this little volume should, in any degree, bring 
 home a quick sense of the ever-active, ever-present energy, 
 
AUSTRALIA, AND THE KANGAROO. 
 
 175 
 
 which ceaselessly guides, and controls, and sustains every 
 movement in creation if, even into hours of amusement 
 it weaves a sweet, yet solemn remembrance of the ever- 
 present Deity, as our Creator, our Preserver, and our Re- 
 deemer, it will not have been written in vain ; and in this 
 hope I bid my young readers farewell. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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